Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee: Propaganda work on food safety must be effective, avoiding formalities

Comrade Thai Thanh Quy - Alternate Member of the Party Central Committee, Deputy Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee, Head of the Inter-sectoral Steering Committee on Food Safety of Nghe An province and Comrade Le Minh Thong - Member of the Provincial Party Standing Committee, Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee, Deputy Head of the Standing Committee of the Inter-sectoral Steering Committee on Food Safety of Nghe An province chaired the meeting.Photo: Thanh Son

At the meeting, the Department of Health - the standing agency of the Steering Committee presented a draft report on the results of the activities of the Interdisciplinary Steering Committee for Food Safety of Nghe An province in 2018.

According to the report, in 2018, Nghe An issued many important documents to effectively implement the province's state management of food safety. Departments, branches, unions, socio-political organizations, districts and cities have also actively implemented tasks in each area of ​​responsibility, decentralization and assignment. Food safety work in the area has had strong changes, especially in information, propaganda, dissemination of laws and inspection and handling.

The leaders of the Department of Health pointed out the difficulties and obstacles in ensuring food safety at present. Photo: Thanh Chung

Although people's awareness of food safety has been significantly raised, in 2018, there were still 6 cases of food poisoning in the area, with 57 people infected, of which 4 died. These 4 deaths were due to drinking wine soaked with forest roots of unknown origin.

At the meeting, members of the steering committee focused on analyzing the difficulties and limitations in ensuring food safety in the province, which are: The scale of production, business and food processing in the area is small and fragmented. Many establishments, for profit, still deliberately violate the use of banned substances and do not pay attention to the conditions for ensuring food safety. The force working on food safety at the district and commune levels is still small and weak in expertise. Propaganda work in remote areas is still limited. There are no sanctions for advertising food on social networks. The handling of violations by authorities at all levels is still lenient...

Concluding the meeting, comrade Thai Thanh Quy requested the Department of Health to complete the report, in which it is necessary to clearly state the agencies, units and localities that have not done a good job of ensuring food safety and to clearly assess the quality of activities of the members of the Provincial Steering Committee; to carry out consultations to perfect the Provincial Steering Committee, with the participation of representatives of the Provincial Youth Union and the Provincial Border Guard Command.

The Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee has given specific instructions on the direction of activities to ensure food safety in 2019, which are: Focus on promoting propaganda, disseminating laws, raising people's awareness of food safety. When conducting propaganda and disseminating laws, it is necessary to pay attention to the target audience, avoid formalities, and avoid disbursement. To effectively propagate, it is necessary to innovate thinking, methods, and forms, with the participation of all agencies, units, and localities.

Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Thai Thanh Quy requested that the work of propagating and disseminating the law needs to be innovated, targeting the right subjects, avoiding formalities and inefficiencies. Photo: Thanh Chung

The Department of Health shall preside over the review and consultation of local departments, agencies and branches on the system of state management documents, and advise the Provincial Steering Committee to send to the Central Steering Committee for amendments and supplements to suit the actual situation in the locality. The Department of Health shall promptly advise the Provincial Steering Committee to develop a year-round inspection and handling plan. This plan must clearly state the activities of each unit, the content and subjects to be focused on at specific times and locations to avoid overlap. Members of the Steering Committee must be present to participate in these inspections as assigned.

The Central interdisciplinary inspection team inspected Thang Yen frozen facility, block 6, Nghi Tan ward, Cua Lo town. Photo: Document

In addition, to improve the effectiveness of state management of food safety at the grassroots level, the Department of Health needs to develop a set of standard documents to guide communes, wards and towns on the procedures and methods of inspection and handling. In particular, it clearly states the violations and situations that often occur in food production, processing and trading establishments. By February 2019, this set of documents needs to be completed and sent to localities.

The Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee also had opinions to resolve the recommendations of the steering committee members such as the issue of food safety management software or the fact that for 3 years the counterpart budget has not been allocated to build a model of a food safety market in Cau Market, Kim Lien Commune, Nam Dan District./.