Why imported vegetable oil was banned — FG

Ayodele Adesanmi, Abuja - 04.05.2008

The federal government said it banned foreign vegetable oils from the country for health and economic reasons. Most of the imported vegetable oils, it stated ,contains animal fat which is high in cholesterol content and cause cancer ,besides undermining our local industries most of which produce fortified vegeable oils.

The Director-General of National Agency for Food Drugs and Administration Control (NAFDAC) ,Professor Dora Akunyili, who disclosed this during a meeting with manufacturers of edible vegetable oils in Abuja, said that the public should stop buying such oils because most of them are not fortified.

She said that the meeting was premised on complaints from consumers concerning the sharp practices going on in the vegetable oil industry.

The complaints, according to her, include adulteration of registered vegetable oils with animal fat, and the extraction of vegetable oil with cheaper but toxic Straight Row Gasoline (SRG) instead of the approved food grade Hexane.

According to him “Straight Row Gasoline is chemically heavier than the approved food grade Hexane. SRG has been found to leave residues in the oil which are very deleterious to human health, causing cancer to various organs of the body”

She informed that the ban of foreign vegetable oils was a gesture aimed at encouraging the vegetable oil industry to grow without undue competition from importers.