Barbados Trade and Tourism Minister Haynesley Benn wants regional manufacturers and importers to take a greater measure of responsibility for ensuring that foods marketed within Caricom pose no health risks to regional consumers.
Addressing a November 1-2 regional training seminar on Caricom’s rapid alert system for exchange of information on dangerous consumer goods, Benn advocated “a Caricom approach” to ending a “piecemeal” attitude to the monitoring of food imports to ensure that their consumption poses no danger to the health of the people of the region, underpinned by “a duty to care” on the parts of manufacturers and importers and a responsibility on the part of consumers to make “informed choices.”
Alluding to a recent audit, which he said “revealed the need for greater cooperation and coordination of action of regional bodies in respect of protecting the health and safety of consumers,” Benn said that a Caricom approach to monitoring its food imports for possible health threats is particularly necessary “given the similarity of the products offered within the region and the fact that we are, increasingly, net importers with declining terms of trade.”
According to Benn the new regional system for monitoring imported consumer goods to guarantee their safety is designed to ensure that governments in the region possess and are able to manage mechanisms for effective market surveillance as well as ensuring the availability of the human and technical services to optimize public safety.
Modelled on the European Rapid Alert System for Exchange of Information on Dangerous Goods (RAPEX) and the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) the new regional monitoring system will likely strike a responsive chord here in Guyana. A seriously under-resourced local Food and Drugs Analyst Department has been fighting an uphill battle against various health risks associated with unmonitored food imports including cases of importation and sale of expired or near-expired items of food. The local FDA has persistently drawn attention to the problem of its lack of capacity including its inability to effectively monitor the retention of outlet shelves of expired or near expired foods and its weak port monitoring facilities. Locally, food safety concerns also exist at the level of the environment in which some foods are produced.
Benn told the seminar he believed that the new regional food safety monitoring mechanism “will serve as a means of providing the environment, whereby products can compete in the market equally. Persons who import or produce products for retail purposes will be even more encouraged to ensure that items meet essential safety and health requirements,” he added.
Increasing global trade liberalization has had the effect of opening Caricom markets to a broader range of food and other imports, heightening the need for effective market surveillance, compelling member states to draft a Caricom Model Consumer Protection Bill which has been approved by the Council for Trade and Economic Development (Coted). The Bill, when it becomes law, will empower departments of government in Caricom member states to ensure, through monitoring, the safety of products sold to consumers in the region. When enacted, the new legislation will also place the onus on business houses to accept responsibility for goods which fail to meet safety requirements.
Benn disclosed that over the next five years Caricom governments will be expected to undertake further training initiatives aimed at improving local management of market surveillance systems, enabling the drafting of memoranda of understanding to facilitate cooperation at the national level among the various regulators and the development of draft codes of practice for business houses responsible for the supply of consumer goods. Attention will also be paid to the provision of supplies, equipment and other resources for the various consumer affairs’ departments and other institutions in the region.
