The Ministry of Health says it will implement all the recommendations of a ministerial committee indicting the Food and Drugs Authority despite protests by the regulator.

The Minister of Health says the FDA had the opportunity to raise its concerns but it lost that opportunity by declining an invitation by the committee.

A ministerial committee set up to investigate the impasse between the Food and Drugs Authority and local importer of pharmaceutical products, Tobinco Pharmaceuticals Company, made unflattering remarks regarding the operations of the regulator.

The committee recommended among other things that there should be a time limit for the registration of drugs.

It said the Ministry of Health must set up a monitoring system and a robust pharmaceutical desk. 

The committee said this was necessary because of lapses it identified in the workings of the FDA. It said, for instance, the Drug Registration Committee (DRC) of the Authority met only once in four years, a claim flat rejected by the FDA. 

“It was realised that some applications for registration of pharmaceutical products can take up to two years despite the fact that all documents have been submitted and the requisite fees paid up-front,” the Chairman of the committee, Dr Alfred Tia Sugri, said.

But the FDA has described the report as inaccurate, particularly the sections accusing it of administrative lapses. 

It stated in a release last Friday that the DRC met on regular basis between 2010 and 2013 and approved 3,254 out of 5,033 applications it received in the last three years.

The FDA says some of the recommendations of the committee were founded on misinformation and ought not to be implemented.

But Health Minister, Sherry Ayittey told Joy News she does not expect the FDA to have any problems with the implementation of the recommendations contained in the report of the committee.

"We set up a committee; we invited you [FDA] to come and meet everybody [but] you refused to come. Other people came and they've provided us with evidence. So far as the facts are there...we are implementing the recommendations," Sherry Ayittey emphasised.