Food & Drugs clamping down on documentation waivers for food importers

Protecting our food imports will be a high priority this year

The Government Analyst Food & Drugs Department will be significantly stepping up its efforts to ensure that Guyanese benefit from an enhanced food safety regime in 2018 and beyond, in keeping with the global shift by countries the world over towards raising food safety standards.

“Globally, we have moved to a stage where food safety standards is a barometer that is used to measure the development levels of countries. It is a reality that Guyana cannot ignore,” GAFDD Director Marlan Cole told the Stabroek Business.

Contextually, the Department highlights three key areas of focus to which it will be paying attention this year, namely, the rigid enforcement of the requirement of Health or Free Sale Certificates for foods being imported, a cessation of facilitation by the GAFDD of requests for waivers on the submission of documents pertaining to the importation of foods mandatory requirement of adequate storage facilities by food importers.