Madam Anita Owusu-Kuffour, Acting Eastern Regional Head of the Food and Drug Authority (FDA), has urged the public to purchase registered wholesome products, from licenced food facilities during and after the Christmas season.
“During this season, people mostly have fun outside the house and buy consumable goods, so if you find yourself at a bar, shop, or restaurant, look for a food hygiene permit,” she advised.
Madam Owusu-Kuffour, speaking to the Ghana News Agency in Koforidua, urged the people to be on the lookout for, “food hygiene permit that is sometimes found hanging at the wall of the facility.”
She said that the FDA was inspired by its slogan, “Your well-being, our Priority,” to work towards ensuring that people ate well in safe and sanitary environments.
To guarantee proper public protection against the consumption of unwholesome food, the FDA launched a “safe disposal exercise,” during which it destroyed four tonnes of non-conforming items considered hazardous to public health, she added.
She explained that the items, which included canned foods, cosmetics, medical devices, and household chemical substances, were gathered through market surveillance in the Eastern Region, and that some manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers voluntarily brought expired products to the office for safe disposal.
Non-conforming materials, she added, were burned, while others were crushed with excavators and buried in the Akwadum dumping site.
Madam Owusu-Kuffour stated that pre- and post-market monitoring on regulated items was part of the FDA’s operations and was carried out as needed.
The FDA’s mission is to protect public health by ensuring the safety, quality, and efficacy of human and veterinary drugs, food, biological products, cosmetics, medical devices, household chemical substances, clinical trials, and tobacco product control through the enforcement of relevant standards.
GNA