FDA REVIEWS ITS PERFORMANCE FOR THE YEAR 2020

The Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) from the 10th to 12th of February 2021 conducted a meeting to review its 2020 Performance. To ensure strict adherence to the Covid-19 protocols, the APR was held through Microsoft Teams Support, whiles the CEO and some key individuals met in person (face to face).

The meeting, commonly referred to as Annual Performance Review (APR) is facilitated by the FDA’s Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Division. It is aimed at assessing the performance of Departments and Regional Offices in the execution of their respective 2020 annual planned programme of work and their impact on regulatory compliance.

The APR created the opportunity to identify challenges and discuss ways to improve the overall performance of the FDA in 2021. Majority of the Departments and Regional offices, in addition to the issue of insufficient logistics, faced several operational challenges such as the inability to effectively execute some planned trainings, inspections, public education, and sensitization activities due to the Covid-19 pandemic and its demands on work schedules.

Despite the above challenges, the meeting highlighted some remarkable achievements such as the FDA's support to the local industry by registering 2463 locally manufactured food products in the year 2020 as compared to the year 2019, where 1511 food products were registered. Additionally, the FDA successfully attained WHO's Maturity level 3 for its medicines regulatory system that ensures the safety, quality and efficacy of all medical products imported, manufactured or distributed in the Ghana.

Mrs. Delese Darko, the Chief Executive Officer of the FDA in addressing the staff at the close of the meeting encouraged staff to put in more effort in order to enable the Authority become more efficient and offer improved services to its stakeholders. She reiterated FDA's commitment to winning public confidence through its core values namely: Accountability, Teamwork and Integrity, and urged all hands to be on deck in achieving this vision in 2021.