THOUGH
Bangladesh is now self-sufficient in food, people are worried about
scarcity of safe food as the quality of food is deteriorating gradually.
Different government agencies conduct drives from time to time to
confiscate food adulteration while Bangladesh Food Safety Authority
(BFSA) is in the forefront of the food safety initiatives. However, the
BFSA's recent activities showed that they are not reliable to people
rather providing clean chit to large conglomerates who are mainly
involved in degrading food quality. In recent time, BFSA issued such
official circular to brighten a retail chain shop though the chain shop
was snapped penalties several times.
The BFSA on Wednesday sent a
press release to the media, saying that its mobile court during a drive
at an outlet of Shwapno Super Shop, a retail chain, thanked it for
selling fresh meat. The drive was conducted at the retail chain's Green
Road branch on Tuesday. But the BFSA press release skipped mentioning
anything about the findings of one of its monitoring team which visited
Shwapno's outlet in Dhanmondi Road No 27 on the same day. BFSA's food
safety inspector Mohammad Kamrul Hasan posted a status on his Facebook
profile with a video of the findings that showed use of artificial
colour in the tray of the meat.
The Magistrate, who led the Mobile
Court that praised the retail chain for selling fresh meat, said he was
under official instruction to conduct drives at Shwapno outlets as the
chain had been found selling expired meat last year. The BFSA must
fulfil its obligations of ensuring safe and fresh food for consumers,
when food safety is growing concern for all. The government is
responsible for ensuring safe food as safe food is a constitutional
right and also a fundamental demand for healthy life. Without proper
steps to ensure safe, unadulterated and nutritious food right, BFSA
cannot proclaim its success of responsibilities. The retail shop owners,
food producers and food processing companies should respect the rights
of safe food. We cannot let the food safety issue to unscrupulous
profit-mongers.