The National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA) has begun the review of its regulatory instruments that have been developed since 2015 till date.
Director General/Chief Executive Officer of NBMA, Dr. Rufus Ebegba, while speaking during one of the internal review meetings held in Abuja on Monday, February 6, 2023, said the agency was subjecting all its regulatory instruments and guidelines to internal review noting that it would be a continuous process that would include all the developed guidelines and instruments since 2015.
He stated that the aim was to ensure improvement of all the documents where necessary.
“I understand that these documents went through rigorous processes of development in the past years. Let me also recognise all efforts geared towards the present taste of these documents by our stakeholders. However, we are looking at the documents holistically to see if there was any need to correct any aspect of them.
“The essence of these internal review series is to ensure that the documents are in tandem with international norms due to the increase in scientific knowledge. The internal reviews of the Agency’s guidelines and application forms are all part of efforts to ensure that the Nigerian biosafety system is strengthened, is up to standard and is up to date with international best practices,” he said.
Dr Ebegba noted that a lot of guidelines, frameworks/strategies, application forms and information manuals have been developed by the agency since inception and these have helped in strengthening the Nigerian biosafety system. He also urged various committees handling some guidelines still under drafting stage to tidy up their works and present the guidelines for reviews.
The NBMA has developed various regulatory instruments and guidelines since 2015 and they include two national policies, seven guidelines, 12 Inspection forms, five manuals, one frequently asked question and three strategies/frameworks, including National Biosafety Risk Analysis Framework, National Biosafety Emergency Response Strategy and National Biosafety Communication Strategy.
The internal review had in attendance all heads of departments and staff of the agency.
