Nghe An: Launching a competition to 'say no to dirty food'

(Baonghean.vn) - The content of the emulation campaign was presented by the Chairman of Nghe An Provincial People's Committee at the online conference to evaluate the implementation results of Directive No. 13/CT-TTg dated May 9, 2016 of the Prime Minister on food safety in the area on the morning of October 21, 2016.

The conference was chaired by Comrade Nguyen Xuan Duong - 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; co-chaired by Comrades Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee, Deputy Head of the Inter-sectoral Steering Committee Le Minh Thong, Dinh Viet Hong. Attending the meeting were representatives of leaders of relevant departments, branches and 21 bridge points of districts, cities and towns.

Online conference to evaluate the implementation results of Directive 13/CT-TTg of the Prime Minister on strengthening state management of food safety in Nghe An.

The report assessing the results of 5 months of implementing Directive No. 13/CT-TTg of the Prime Minister stated that Nghe An has made important progress in food safety. Accordingly, from the province to the district level, the Inter-sectoral Steering Committee on Food Safety has been established, headed by the Chairman of the People's Committee at all levels; the Provincial People's Committee issued Decision 61/2016/QD-UBND dated October 12, 2016, which is a "pivotal" regulation on the assignment of responsibilities and coordination of state management of food safety in the area.

The interdisciplinary inspection team of Nghe An province inspected Big C Vinh Supermarket on the occasion of Mid-Autumn Festival.

In management, the province has strengthened the review and statistics of food production, processing and trading establishments; granted food safety certificates to 1,090 establishments, bringing the total number of establishments granted food safety certificates to 3,353/23,154 establishments; signed food safety commitments with 3,958 establishments.

Nghe An has established 2 interdisciplinary inspection teams, 7 specialized inspection teams from departments and branches, 223 interdisciplinary and specialized inspection teams at district level. The teams have inspected 757 establishments, discovered 639 violations, imposed fines of 1,577,728,000 VND, destroyed 4,675 kg of animal products, 11,300 poultry and hundreds of tons of food of unknown origin.

At the conference, the delegates focused on analyzing and highlighting the current difficulties in ensuring food safety and hygiene. Accordingly, the Inter-sectoral Steering Committee on Food Safety and Hygiene in some districts, cities, towns and communes, wards and townships are not operating effectively. Some government leaders have not yet clearly recognized the responsibility of the locality in food safety work.

In addition, funding, equipment and tools for rapid food testing, although supported, are still limited, affecting work efficiency; the staff in charge of food safety inspection at the commune level still hold multiple jobs and have limited knowledge; inspection and examination work at the district and commune levels is still ineffective, and handling food safety violations is mainly a matter of warning.

Comrade Nguyen Xuan Duong stated: Ensuring food safety is the top priority task of the Party and State. and the entire political system.

Speaking at the meeting, comrade Nguyen Xuan Duong frankly stated: Currently, people's trust in safe food is still low. The basic reason is that food produced according to safe processes and techniques in the area is still limited. In addition, the authorities have not provided consumers with addresses of safe food production and trading establishments for people to choose from.

The Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee criticized a number of inspection teams, especially those at the district level. Many localities and units, when conducting inspections, discovered many establishments violating the law but did not impose fines on any establishments but only issued warnings. The Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee reminded that it is necessary to pay attention to building inspection teams with good public ethics and strict discipline.

The Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee emphasized: Ensuring food safety is a "national and family benefit" job, no matter how difficult it is, it must be done. All levels of sectors and localities must consider ensuring food safety as a regular job, put it into the emulation targets to have strong direction, and must not be subjectively disregarded; Ensuring food safety must rely on the political system and the people - Chairmen of People's Committees at all levels must be responsible to local people for food safety.

Vinh city's interdisciplinary inspection team inspected and took samples at Nghi Phu slaughterhouse.

At the conference, comrade Nguyen Xuan Duong launched a competition among local sectors to attack dirty food, the movement "People say no to dirty food". The competition lasted from the fourth quarter of 2016 to the end of the first quarter of 2017. Sectors, depending on each field, chose what they needed to do immediately and first. Localities implemented the completion of the steering committee, strengthened inspections, promoted the entire political system to participate, actively propagated and mobilized people to denounce food safety violations, said no to dirty food... The Department of Health - the standing agency of the Inter-sectoral Steering Committee regularly updated and evaluated the results; focused on post-inspection assessment - considering this as a criterion for evaluating state management of food safety in localities and units./.

Thanh Son