Police: Something off about Port of Spain food safety

WITH TAKEAWAY, street food and fast food returning to the menu come Monday morning, Port of Spain mayor Joel Martinez is pushing for greater accountability for public health standards in the capital.

Sanitation and food quality there have come under increasing public scrutiny.

Last month, public health inspectors shut down and seized hundreds of pounds of frozen and unfrozen meat from a meat shop on George Street.

In light of this, on Friday, Martinez told Newsday he understands the concerns of many who question Port of Spain's reputation on food safety.

"I am going to seriously prompt our CEO to engage public health (inspectors) to do their jobs."

"Any premises, anywhere in Port of Spain, should be inspected, and if need be, a warning or a reprimand or an order to close (issued) accordingly," said Martinez.

Newsday tried to get a comment from a senior health inspector. He said he could not speak officially on internal matters.

But when asked if there were sufficient health inspectors to cover the capital, he said he did not believe there was any shortage of workers and that issues would not be down to staffing numbers.

On June 7, a meat shop owned by 57-year-old Vejai Ramlakhan, operating as VP Trading Ltd, was shut down and hundreds of pounds of frozen and unfrozen meat seized.

Health inspectors visited the meat shop two days after police raided an illegal scrap-iron yard next door, which Ramlakhan also owns.

Police seized manhole covers allegedly belonging to the city, as well as a large amount of copper, which the scrap-yard owner said his late father left for him. Ramlakhan was arrested and charged.

When Newsday visited two days later, police were still raiding the scrap yard and clearing items. Simultaneously public health inspectors and police visited the meat shop, which was promptly shut down.

Newsday spoke with Supt Charles, who led the raid on the scrap yard and meat shop.

He complained that the inspectors visited the meat shop only after police noticed its deplorable state while they were raiding the unlicensed scrap yard.

"It's only because the police intervened on Saturday and observed what was going on," Charles said. "I had a conversation with the chief public health inspector and let them know we need to do an exercise, because there are several public health issues that you all have to address there."

He described it as "beyond unsanitary," infested with animal faeces, and containing meat deemed unfit for human consumption.

Charles, looking repulsed, said the police should not have to report unsanitary conditions at food stores across the capital, and criticised the public health department.

"You know what is the alarming thing? There is a public health inspector supposed to be visiting there at least twice a week," Charles said. "That means the public health inspectors were not doing their work.

"The corporation has a big (staff of) public health inspectors and all of them are assigned an area."

He said it was inexcusable for the meat shop’s staff to have been doing business for so long without food badges.

Martinez said he shared the concerns raised by Charles, but had been distracted by the pervasive issue of stolen manhole covers across the city.

He said he expects to receive a full report about the incident at the meat shop and, more broadly, he wants the entire issue of food safety in the cityl to be addressed, especially as businesses reopen in the midst of the pandemic.

Martinez said, "(When) the superintendent of police indicated to me that the premises were in a state, that we needed to bring in public health to be able to deal with it – because this can't take place in the city – I then arranged with the (corporation's) CEO to alert Public Health that they needed to visit the premises and do what is necessary.

He also said, "I think the officer is absolutely right. If the inspectors were doing their jobs consistently, then they would have picked up this incident a long time ago.

"What it prompts me (to do) now is to find out the (staff) rostering and who is inspecting the inspectors when they go out and they do their job, because we have a list of all the businesses in Port of Spain, and some officers are usually rostered to a certain area.

"So maybe the system needs to be looked at, or the diligence of the officers."