Last Tuesday’s media release issued by the Guyana Manufacturers’ & Services Associaion (GMSA) on the subject of the proliferation of illegal “food, drugs and cosmetics” into Guyana goes to the heart of a considerable challenge which the country has had to face over many years. During that period there has been no real evidence of serious official efforts at corrective action. Here, it has to be said that the issue has less to do with a lack of the requisite legal restraints and more to do with an entrenched and widespread contempt for the authority of the Government Analyst Food & Drugs Depart-ment (GAFDD). Frankly, the fact of the transgression of the laws that ought to protect us from this particular illegality, on the one hand, and on the other, what frequently appears to be the powerlessness of the GAFDD to rein in the transgressors, has elevated itself to the point where it has become one of the most outrageous contemporary transgressions of the law that we in Guyana have had to endure.
It is hardly a secret that there continues to be numerous instances of transgressors seeking to avert compliance by ‘going upstairs’ in search of some alternative to complying with the regulations. There have even been, we are told, instances of some measure of ‘arm-twisting in an effort have the laws circumvented. What is on display here is not just a contempt for the laws of the country but a flagrant disregard for the consequences to sections of the population that acquire and use these likely unsafe foods, medications, and cosmetics. There is, as well, the impact of the practice of the underselling of the ‘straight’ businesses whose identical but legally imported products must then compete with the cheaper illegal ones.
Some interesting issues arise here. First, and notwithstanding the laws that empower the GAFDD, one does not get the impression that it has what one might call the ‘clout’ to push back effectively against the high-stakes illegal importers. In the face of its inability to have the laws effectively enforced at the point of transgression, the GAFDD sometimes finds itself embroiled in protracted litigation in pursuit of its efforts to right wrongs and to perform its functions in the prescribed manner. One wonders, as well, about the nature and extent of the collaboration between the GAFDD and the Customs Department, which collaboration at the port(s) of entry is necessary if the GAFDD is to successfully execute its inspection prerogative. One feels, additionally, that the GAFDD’s enforcement prerogative is not even remotely close to being buttressed by the requisite human resource capacity. Consequently, it is believed that a great deal simply slips under its radar.
Another interesting issue that reveals itself has to do with the fact that what amounts to a fairly robust rebuke of the practice of circumventing provisions of the Food & Drugs Act has come from one of our leading Business Support Organizations. (BSO’s). One makes this point since business houses have themselves been fingered in practices that have to do with seeking to have provisions of the Food & Drugs Act circumvented. Contextually, we believe that it is altogether appropriate that the GMSA be commended for the stand that it has taken.
In the final analysis, however, it is government that has to raise its game by taking legislative and other forms of action that significantly strengthen the capacity of the GAFDD to perform its functions without fear of being ambushed. That, and the significant strengthening of the deterrent capacity of the Department ought to be more than sufficient to allow for a turning of the proverbial corner.
