New laws for food handling

Improperly prepared food has a direct impact on health and productivity in the workplace, says Agriculture, Land and Fisheries Minister Clarence Rambharat.

However, he is confident a new package of laws governing food safety would be presented to Cabinet early in next year to deal with this issue.

Rambharat said, “Food safety is something we have to take seriously because statistics show poor health on account of eating something that is not safe to eat, impacts on productivity and attendance in the workplace.”

He was speaking to reporters at the opening of the Fiery Store and More at Atlantic Plaza in Couva, a food outlet which specialises in hot sauces of all kinds, both local and imported. The minister said while fresh legislation is needed to enhance local food safety, there is a need for health inspectors at the regional and borough corporations to enforce existing laws.

“We have health inspectors, we have things in place, we have the municipal bodies and what we should be doing is enforcing the law.

For example, I have said to the Mayor of Port of Spain recently that we need to go to that food court at the Queen’s Park Savannah and have a closer look at what is happening there to bring the vendors in line.”

Rambharat said he had been to Palmiste Park near San Fernando and it is necessary for health inspectors to visit vendors there as well.

“Let us fix the law, let us modernise the law and let us develop new manuals for food inspectors and health inspectors to use. I am hoping to get the package early in 2018 and present it to Cabinet so we could put in place modern food-safety legislation.”

Asked to identify the challenges which plagued his ministry in 2017 and what areas he would focus on in the New Year, Rambharat said he had spent a lot of time speaking about the weather and locusts.

He said the ministry’s aim is to build on what it had accomplished over the past year and focus on the issue of land tenure and lease-distribution exercises which are carded for next week and also in early 2018.