The Food and Drug Department hosted an awareness session targeting supermarket and point of sale operators to discuss sale regulations, quality assurance and other issues in order to ensure that quality items are available for sale.
According to a Government Information Agency (GINA) press release Health Minister Dr Leslie Ramsammy said that the attendance of the participants indicated their interest in facilitating development and modernisation. He noted that it is critical that items procured at supermarkets are safe and of good quality. The meeting focused on quality assurance of commodities, storage facilities, repackaging requirements and requirements for retailing of pharmaceuticals and cosmetics.
The Department, the Agriculture ministry and the Consumer Affairs Division of the Tourism Ministry are working together to institute regulations to ensure safety; however, stakeholder support is crucial to upholding the law.
Ramsammy said that there is a zero-tolerance policy in place for offenders since disregarding a commodity’s quality endangers the health of consumers. The minister noted that it is critical for expiration dates to be observed and the origin of a product clearly stated on labels.
Appropriate storage is also important as the environment should be free of vectors and rodents. The meeting also focused on supermarkets in Guyana collaborating to establish their own set of standards which are expected to work in tandem with those set by the relevant authorities.
In addition, representative from the Tourism Ministry’s Consumer Affairs Division, Muriel Tinnis, noted that the existing regulations need to be strengthened. She identified several pitfalls which occur when buying and selling pharmaceuticals, including disregard for expiration dates, selling medication loose, selling of redrawn drugs, forging trademarks, inappropriate labelling and improper storage.
