General News of Thursday, 27 September 2018
Source: kasapafmonline.com
2018-09-27
The FDA will start conducting checks on food items at NADMO
The Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) has revealed that it has no arrangement with the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) to periodically check the wholesomeness of food items in its stock.
The disclosure comes on the back of expired relief items being erroneously distributed to flood victims in Wa in the Upper West Region by Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia over the weekend.
NADMO in a statement admitted distributing expired products but was quick to add that the products were not procured by the Vice President and said it takes full responsibility for the error and has taken measures to deal with the situation.
“All items distributed to the three Northern Regions were not purchased by the Vice President’s office but were all supplied from the NADMO.
“NADMO takes full responsibility for the said mistakes, and assures the general public that no such unfortunate incident will recur”.
The FDA finds this incident disturbing, taking into account the health effect of consuming those products, had the beneficiaries of those products consume it without verifying its wholesomeness.
Speaking on Anopa Kasapa on Kasapa FM to host Kweku Owusu Adjei, the Public relations Office of the Food and Drugs Authority, James Lartey said his outfit is devastated by the news and as a way of curbing future occurrence, will have to put in place measures to avoid its recurrence.
“The way regulations are, they are dynamic. Sometimes things happen and then it alerts you the regulator to add something to your operations. So with this thing that has happened, this is an alert to us, I`m not sure we have an arrangement with the NADMO office for any periodic checks,” he said.
But going forward, it will be necessary we add it to our schedule and do that, it is very necessary we do that so that what happened in the Upper West region does not happen again,” he urged.
When asked whether the FDA has any responsibility in assessing the wholesomeness and quality of food in warehouses before they are distributed, he said “I am not sure, especially with NADMO”