By Rachel Kakraba
The Food and Drugs Authority, FDA, says its 2023 nationwide monitoring of Sudan dyes adulteration in palm oil has showed significant improvement over that of 2022. It said ninety-three out of the 114 sampling sites, were free from adulteration.
On regional compliance, the FDA, revealed that Western, Ahafo, Bono East, Oti, Savannah, North East, Upper East, and Upper West Regions showed no signs of adulteration. The FDA Deputy Chief Executive, in charge of Food Division, Roderick Daddey-Adjei, who disclosed this to GBCNEWS, attributed this marked decrease in adulteration to key regulatory interventions such as education and enforcement of regulations.
“Explaining why some persons engage in the practice, Mr. Daddey-Adjei said, “usually they say that it is customer driven, that when they come and buy, they say that it is not red enough. And so in the course of trying to get it red enough, they add some of these colors, which is not allowed because the Sudan IV is textile dye. You would have heard this word “suudii”, in the local parlance but it’s not meant for human consumption. It’s carcinogenic, so there are health concerns that you want to avoid”
Speaking to the decrease he highlighted that “we took about 444 samples. In the sampling, we visited all major markets in Ghana. We are happy to announce that this time round, the percentage of those that got contaminated was a little about 6. 7%. So we had almost 94 percent passing, which is a very good indicator but We are still not happy about that small percentage.
Mr. Daddey-Adjei, said it is a criminal offence to adulterate palm oil and warned persons engaged in the practice to desist.
“with this one that we even did, we did some arrests, and we have handed them over to the police.
He noted that while there are no definitive signs to identify adulterated palm oil, consumers should remain vigilant when purchasing these products.
“When we go to the market, ask your vendor where they got the palm oil. Let them know that, you know, people sometimes put it in there and that you are not interested.
Mr. Daddey-Adjei, said food safety is a shared responsibility and asked the public to expose people who compromise food safety.
“Ghanaians should know that food safety is important and everybody’s responsibility. If you see something, please say it”
Adding on, he said “we need to do this work with you, so it’s not only Sudan iv we are talking about. We are talking about food safety generally.
The exercise otherwise known as product quality monitoring post market surveillance is one of the activities that the Authority undertakes in the area of regulation by random sampling products in the market to check the quality, safety and efficacy of products that fall under its purview especially those that have a history of having had some kind of issue in the system.
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