At a time when governments in developed countries are embracing legislative measures to protect their populations against food-borne diseases associated with lax importation policies that pay less than careful attention to food imports, it behooves governments in poor countries, which, on account of their already profligate and often less than carefully overseen import policies, to follow suit by adhering to their own already existing laws and regulations and where necessary to have those tightened.
The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) brought into law by the Obama administration in 2010 has served not only as a signal of America’s determination to do everything that it can to protect its population from food-borne illnesses, it has also come as a sort of a wider global wakeup call to the rest of the international community which, under the rules and regulations set out in the FSMA are required to meet certain stringent and provable quality control yardsticks if their food products are to be allowed on the US market.
In theory, at least, the same is true for other countries which have rules that have the same intended effect as the FSMA except, of course, that those continue to be undermined by loopholes that allow the rules to be circumvented.
The problem of food imports that end up on the local market though these might be in contravention of the law is nothing new to Guyana. In fact, the previous Director of the Government Analyst Food and Drugs Department (GAFDD) Ms Marilyn Collins and her successor, Mr Marlan Cole, have spoken with Stabroek Business about this problem and both of them have attributed it in large measure to the limited enforcement capacity of the GAFDD.
That, however, may not be the only problem. The department’s limited capacity aside it appears that it frequently finds itself confronted with near fait accompli in the form of consignments of food products landed in Georgetown without some or all of the paperwork necessary to allow for smooth passage onto the market and being ‘pushed’ by importers who assert that the delays in having the goods released cost them money.
Some of this kind of pressure, it seems, gets transformed into political intervention and though the current Director of the GAFDD discreetly declines to comment on this, Stabroek Business understands that over the years it has not been uncommon for directives to be passed down to have some or all of the paperwork waived, so that the food imports involved are released onto the market under circumstances that are, to say the least, questionable.
Just last week the GAFDD made public its concern over a consignment of milk which it said had been mislabelled and which therefore was not being allowed on the market. When this newspaper enquired further we were told that there was at least one other consignment of milk that was being held up under similar circumstances. A matter of days thereafter a media report charged that a group of businessmen was accusing the GAFDD of holding up their imports. What the GAFDD told us was that the imports in question were being subjected to the customary rules and release would depend on the presentation of the relevant documents.
Though Mr Cole continued to be mindful not to discuss the issue, we were told that there was other behind-the-scenes lobbying by a particular businessman to have the goods released onto the market. Eventually, according to a Ministry of Public Health source, there had been a decision to have some or all of the goods released and that this had come from “higher up” in the Ministry. Mr Cole has made no comment on this but what we have observed is that the apparent earlier protestations of the businessmen alluded to in the media report have quietly gone away. It should be added that we have not been able to determine whether – assuming that the goods were released, after all – the requisite paperwork had been tendered before their release.
The point to be made here is that at a time when, according to the GAFDD, some milk products among others are being produced to standards that could give rise to health issues among consumers, including children it would be more than a little reassuring to know that the rules and regulations are being applied in the strictest sense as far as meeting the conditionalities for placing imported food items on the local market is concerned. As we understand it, some of these goods may be targeting countries (like Guyana) which have less than the strictest of import oversight regimes. At a time when developed countries with a greater capacity to cope with food-borne diseases are seeking to consolidate their legal infrastructure to restrict suspect food items, it would be, to say the least, reckless, for us to assume a posture of indifference on the issue. Where there is nexus between the nation’s health and the strict adherence to the rules and regulations governing food imports there should be no officially sanctioned loopholes.
