No let-up in food adulteration [ Tritiyo Matra News ]

No let-up in food adulteration

Local May 17, 2019

Soft penalties together with an endemic culture of impunity as well as food businesses’ and the consumers’ lack of awareness were identified as the root causes of food adulterations continuing amidst occasional deterrent drives.
Owners of restaurants and bakeries feel that that at least a dozen government agencies hold drives against food adulteration mostly for publicity.
They also blamed the authorities for overlooking the root causes of the malaise harming public health.
Former chairman of the Anti-Corruption Commission and Consumers Association of Bangladesh president Ghulam Rahman told New Age that the Food Safety Act 2013 prescribes the fine of Tk 20 lakh as the maximum punishment for the prevention of food adulteration.
He called the punishment as ‘inadequate’ for the prevention of food adulteration.
Conscious Consumers Society executive director Palash Mahmud said that the mobile courts run in the capital by at least half a dozen government agencies failed to create any visible impact.
He said that food adulteration became endemic in Bangladesh due to government agencies’ indifference over the past decade.
Since occasional mobile court drives failed to curb food adulteration, he said that the government should go for nationwide simultaneous drives against the malaise.
On May 2, Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution published a report according to which after testing 406 food items 52 were found to be unfit for human consumption.
None of the government agencies took any action against the 52 food products until the High Court Division ordered the government to destroy or remove them from the market after hearing a public interest litigation writ petition filed by Palash.
A bench of Justice Sheikh Hassan Arif and Justice Razik-Al-Jalil directed the chairman of Bangladesh Food Safety Authority and the director general of National Consumer Rights Protection Department to immediately remove and destroy the 52 substandard food products of 43 companies.
The court also directed the party in power and the prime minister to wage war against food adulteration just like the on-going drive against drugs.
The court asked the government to treat prevention of food adulteration as priority number one and directed BSFA and the NCRPD to take punitive action against the companies that produce and market substandard foods and submits the compliance report at the next hearing on May 23.
Following the court’s order BSTI cancelled licences of nine companies and suspended others’.
On Thursday NCRPD in a public notice asked the errant companies to remove the products from the market in two days.
But New Age found that shopkeepers were selling all the 52 food products in the capital.
Not only that, amidst special drives by city corporations, BSTI, BFSA, NCRPD and the law enforcement agencies in Ramadan adulterated and contaminated or date expired foods are also being sold across the country.
A DNCC mobile court on Thursday fined super shop Agora at Farmgate Tk one lakh for freezing meat item in unhealthy conditions and also fined Prince Hotel and Restaurant Tk two lakhs for the same offence.
Rezaul Karim Sarker Robin, secretary general of Bangladesh Restaurant Owners’ Association described the mobile court drives as nothing but publicity stunts.
He said that the agencies also know that safe food cannot be ensured by holding mobile courts.
He said that positive results would remain elusive until and unless the owners of restaurants and the food processing companies were made aware about the issue of food adulteration.
Bangladesh Food Safety Authority chairman Mohammad Mahfuzul Hoque however said that the situation would improve gradually.
He admitted that there was serious deficit in law enforcement.
BFSA executive magistrate Tusher Ahmed said that a comprehensive approach was under implementation to enforce the law and raise awareness of food businesses to curb adulteration.