Stakeholders call for setting up unified national agency to monitor food safety

AMMAN — The General Director of the Jordan Poultry Producers Association Salah Sabra on Monday called for the establishment of a national food council to be in charge of food inspection and restaurants.     

"We have around 60,000 food establishments in the Kingdom and they are not well covered by the various health establishments," Sabra told The Jordan Times.

Sabra added that the "monitoring and inspection process is not at its best and there are too many government entities in charge, which could sometimes create conflicts or confusion on who is responsible for what".

 "We import around four million tonnes of food, including poultry and meat, and this entails to have one government entity that is in charge of inspecting all the food that enters the country and the health procedures after it enters the Kingdom," Sabra said.

Sabra's comments were in reaction to a recent food poisoning incident in which a five-year-old child and a man died, in addition to the hospitalisation of hundreds of people after having chicken shawerma meals from a restaurant in Balqa's Ein Al Basha region on July 27.  

Last week, Health Minister Saad Jaber said that "people who were admitted to hospital suffered from Intercox Vicalls and Campylobacter bacteria".

Meanwhile, Jordan Association for Restaurants and Sweets Shops Owners President Omar Awad said that the inspection efforts of food establishments "should be united among the government agencies".

"We have many inspectors from various government establishments that are in charge of health regulations for food establishments, and I believe that we need to have one entity that is responsible for the inspection and monitoring process," Awad told The Jordan Times.

Awad added that there is also "an urgent need to ensure that the health inspection teams are qualified to monitor the food and health conditions at food establishments".

"This is people's health and safety and they need to be very serious about it… we have to admit we have a big problem and we have to work on fixing it," Awad added.