Food safety drive falters

Bangladesh Food Safety Authority (BFSA) cannot function properly due to dearth of manpower and required logistics support, thus making the food safety a distant dream, officials said.
BFSA is the main agency of the government to ensure food safety for public health. But, it could not even start monitoring installation of formalin detection machines in the country's food and fruit processing units.
The High Court (HC) recommended installation of High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) machines at all government, semi-government and private food processing units.
Earlier, following a writ petition, HC observed that using HPLC machines is suitable for the food and fruits processing units in the country.
The parliament passed the Food Safety Act on October 10, 2013 with provisions for establishment of an efficient and technologically-sound authority.
The law aims to combat food adulteration in all stages of the supply chain and look over a variety of other food-related issues. It is also expected to put an end to the current multi-ministry-controlled mechanism on food safety issues.
Subsequently, BFSA was set up on February 2, 2015 as an umbrella to coordinate activities of all stakeholders involved in the food supply chain.
But BFSA is yet to carry out adequate monitoring, necessary to properly execute the law, due to lack of manpower and logistic supports.
At present there are only 11 officials in the organization - one chairman, four members, one secretary and five directors.
An official of BFSA admitted that they could not carry out monitoring at the food and fruit processing units to see whether those installed HPLC machines or not.
"We are taking information from the processing units. After that we will conduct drive against the errant units," BFSA secretary Md Abdul Baten told the FE.   
He said they have requested the Ministry of Public Administration to take necessary measures for appointing required manpower for BFSA.
Earlier, food safety issues were dealt with in a scattered manner by various government agencies, as there was no single agency to look into these issues.
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