The proliferation of food vendors on city streets is posing major challenges for the Georgetown municipality in its efforts to effectively monitor health and safety standards in the industry, acting Chief Meat and Food Inspector Jagdish Singh told Stabroek Business in a telephone interview earlier this week.
With street vendors offering various types of prepared foods to consumers from makeshift stalls outside schools, beer gardens and various other vantage city points now numbering in their hundreds, the municipality’s limited inspectorate staff cannot, in many cases, offer verifiable health and safety guarantees in respect of the services that they offer, Singh said.
Singh explained that one of the primary problems faced by the municipal inspectorate is associated with the limitations it faces in verifying the conditions under which food is prepared. “Since we are unable to secure access to most of these kitchens we really cannot vouch for the sanitary conditions under which the food is prepared. In effect, while suspicions sometimes exist we have no proof to use as a basis for taking action,” Singh said.
According to Singh there are also “social problems” associated with the effective application of the regulations. “What we have as well are these ‘how we gun mek a living’ protests coming from the vendors and there is always the likelihood of protests from people who are penalized.”
The municipal official also told Stabroek Business that his department is also hamstrung by the length of time it takes to receive results of tests of materials sent for sampling. “It can sometimes take up to a month to receive the results of a water sample,” Singh said.
He explained that while the City Meat and Food Inspectorate continued to receive no relief from its chronic staff shortage it still discharges a range of responsibilities including providing training programmes for school vendors and sno-cone cart operators.
According to Singh, his department is also concerned over cases in which business premises operating as beer gardens and pubs do so without the requisite facilities. “We have far too many cases of patrons using public spaces as urinals and in some cases affecting residents,” Singh explained.
Responsibility for reining in the practice rests with both his own department which issues licences to those establishments and with the inspectorate of the Guyana Revenue Authority, which is empowered to seize products being offered for sale by establishments that provide no sanitary facilities.
Meanwhile, Singh confirmed that his department was working with PAHO/ WHO and the Institute of Distance and Continuing Education (IDCE) to offer training in Hygiene for food handlers across the country. The first such course, a three-day programme which commences on May 21, will be held at the University of Guyana. According to Singh, the new programme is intended to standardize the training for food handlers across the country.
Asked about current safety and health standards in restaurants, snackettes and other eating houses, Singh said that the past year has seen some measure of improvement in those standards on account of the fact that more eating houses had been established in new buildings. “Part of the problem with these establishments has always been cleaning.
In cases where buildings are older sanitation has been a greater problem. New buildings have, in some cases, meant that standards have improved,” Singh added.
