By Chris Chikelue
Stakeholders drawn from various regulatory bodies in Anambra State have a one-Day engagement to brainstorm on healthy practices in the production, distribution and consumption of food and water in the state.
This was at the initiative of the State Ministry of Health, Department of Anti-Piracy, Food and Water Safety and Hygiene (WASH).
Declaring the event open which held at the Conference hall of the ministry, the Permanent Secretary, Dr. Obiageli Uchebo pointed that real action need to be taken henceforth to prevent the people of the state from consuming harmful substances in the guise of eating food.
She said, “Various diseases and ailment are plaguing people of this generation because proper checks and balances are not done, yet where this is done people tend to cut corners during the processes.
“The reason for this meeting is for us to brainstorm on how to curb practices that are inimical to good food processing practices from the point of production through the people handling them to when it gets to the society.
“The State Ministry of Health has a mandate on Food Safety and WASH, we are here to look at the various sections of our mandates, discuss what is obtained outside in the society and find out how to stop all ugly practices involved in the processing of these food as they get to our people.”
The Programme Officer Food and Water Safety Hygiene, Mrs. Rose Amasiani while projecting the objectives of the engagement said, “there are numerous unsafe practices done along the food supply chain in Nigeria and Anambra State inclusive, such as exposure of ready to eat foods to houseflies and other disease vectors.
“Ripening of fruits with carbide, roasting of groundnuts with acid, processing our cassava with bleach and detergents, cooking of moi-moi and okpa with waterproofs, processing of red oil with chemicals, processing of palm wine with chemicals also.”
She also said that the meeting was to enable the participants to understand the importance of food safety and hygiene in relationship to healthy living.
“For better understanding of each stakeholders roles and responsibilities to ensure that safe foods are produced and consumed in Anambra State and to push for evidence based data generation food safety and hygiene/WASH.”
The sessions broke off into deliberations, questions and answers session where participants had opportunity to analyze what their organizations are doing to help sanitize and erode the society of unacceptable practices in the distribution of food and water.
In attendance were officials of the National Association for Food, Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Standard Organization of Nigeria (SON) and Hoteliers.
Others are Representatives Anambra State Association; Bakers, Food vendors, Butchers and Civil Liberty Organization (CLO).
Chris is of the Ministry of Information, Anambra State
