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The Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) is warning all street food vendors who are operating without a valid permit to stop.
The Authority says such actions are illegal and punishable by law.
Available data from the Authority show that only 1,079 food service establishments across the nation have been issued with the FDA’s Food Hygiene Permits.
These establishments include restaurants, food joints, street-vendor food, chop bars and catering facilities. The data also only 1,079 food vendors met the FDA’s minimum food safety requirement out of about 5,000 street vendors trained in good hygiene practices from 2021 to ensure that the food sold was safe.
Speaking on the sidelines at an event to commemorate this year’s World Food Safety Day held in Kumasi on June 8, Deputy CEO of the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) Roderick Kwabena Daddey-Adjei expressed concern about the blatant disregard for food standards spelt out by the authority, which he says put the lives of consumers in jeopardy.
He however indicated the presence of a food safety policy by the Food and Drugs Authority to deal with such threats.
“We are asking the public to be on the lookout for the Street Food Vendor Permit. It is just getting the appropriate technology to get your business going. All the people who have this permit may have done some medical tests so they can’t transmit any disease to anybody. And we have said that if you are a vendor and operating without this permit you do this at your peril and you will not be spared”, Mr Daddey-Adjei warned.
“So, we embark on post-market surveillance to gather intelligence… and you can pick crucial information about some criminal activities which are going on. We have had our tipoffs and had some persons arrested…Also, the Food Emergency Response Plan by the FDA brings together all stakeholders to deal with such issues and sensitize the public on standard practices.”
Food standards specify how food should be handled, measured, packaged, transported, and labelled to keep it safe. The Deputy CEO of the FDA explained that maintaining food safety was crucial throughout the entire food chain and thus called on the citizenry to give it much attention.
Mr Daddey-Adjei called on Ghanaians to join the efforts of the government regulatory agencies to achieve real and lasting solutions to food safety issues.
This year’s World Food Safety Day was under the theme: “Safer food, better lives”.
SOURCE: DAILY MAIL GH
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