The Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) has raised concerns over the porous nature of Ghana’s borders and the numerous unapproved routes, which it says are hampering its efforts to prevent sub-standard food and medicines from entering the country.
According to the Authority’s 2025 Operational Performance Report, it currently has officials stationed at only 11 of the 32 identified border posts across the country.
The situation, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the FDA, Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Manso Opuni, said, made it difficult for the Authority to identify and track sub-standard food and pharmaceutical products entering the country and subsequently finding their way onto the market.
Prof. Opuni raised the concern at the FDA’s annual stakeholder meeting held in Accra yesterday, where he highlighted the achievements and challenges of the Authority and explored ways of addressing them in collaboration with its partners.
The meeting was held under the theme: ‘Regulatory Excellence through Innovation, Collaboration and Sustained Growth.’
“With the border posts, I must say that the 32 is not the actual figure because my Director of Import and Export here said we have over 150 unapproved routes in the country and still counting. So, the 32 routes are the routes we have identified,” Prof. Opuni said.
He added that some FDA officials stationed at the 11 border posts were operating under trees because they did not have offices, describing the situation as worrying.
However, Prof. Opuni said the Authority was working to improve the situation by providing officers stationed at the 11 border posts with fully functional container facilities to enhance their operations.
He further indicated that the FDA would continue to identify new border posts across the country to help address the influx of sub-standard food and medicines onto the market, given the dynamic nature of illegal activities.
Meanwhile, the Head of Quality Management Systems at the FDA, Mr Joseph Ofosu Siaw, in his presentation on the Authority’s 2025 operational performance, bemoaned the state of its equipment and facilities.
He noted that some of the equipment and facilities were more than 20 years old, a situation he said required urgent attention to enable the Authority to effectively discharge its mandate.
In his remarks, the Chief Director of the Ministry of Health, Mr Desmond Boateng, urged the FDA to leverage technology and digital innovation, saying its operations were central to public health.
“Across the world, regulatory authorities are showing us how innovation and collaboration can improve public health,” he said.
According to him, regulatory innovation was not only about technology but also about adopting better approaches to make regulation faster, smarter and more responsive without compromising public health.
BY BENJAMIN ARCTON-TETTEY
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