Translated from the Arabic original published on:
https://www.mtv.com.lb/News/مــحــلــيــات/1292854/اللبنانيّون-يأكلون-السموم-وأبو-فاعور-يكشف-معلومات-لموقع-mtv
As the economic crisis tightens its grip on every detail of our lives, food items that are of unknown origin and bad quality, and bearing weird brand names, are appearing in the market. Also, chronic power outages are causing great damage to meat and dairy products.
Recently published reports of poisoning cases have largely attributed these cases to food items whose shelf-life has expired. This includes flour, meats, and other items. One then asks what is the role of the Food Safety National Board that was born out of the Food Safety Act and the ensuing campaign led by former Health Minister Wa’el Abou-Faour between 2015 and 2017. Little has since been done, and scant attention paid to empowering the health inspectors and other human resources. The crisis in which the country has become embattled has created a new set of priorities in which food safety unfortunately appears to be on the bottom of the list. Exorbitant fuel prices and the collapsed purchasing power due to dwindling salaries have prevented the follow-up of reported cases, as happened in the Bekaa Valley earlier this week with the closure of four butcher shops.
The daily raids and crackdowns that the inspectors used to conduct are virtually non-existent nowadays due to high fuel prices, ongoing strikes, and absenteeism. The greedy merchants of death have a free rein in the market and supermarkets, where they disseminate untested and unregulated brands, and whose poor quality is suspected from their unusually low prices. A simple example is the large size mortadella priced at 20,000 LL whereas other known brands sell at more than 100,000 LL.
Former Health Minister Abou-Faour, who was the star of the 2015-2017 food safety campaign, commented to MTV: “As a political party [with which I am affiliated], we did our duty in the Health Ministry and confronted with decisiveness and determination the greedy merchants and importers, and those ruling class politicians who support them. Before we left the Ministry, I pushed hard in Parliament for the passage of the Food Safety Act, which would institutionalize our campaign and not leave it as a one-off.” Abou-Faour goes on to say, “Unfortunately, the regulatory decrees and the formation of the Board were delayed, because at the start of the acute economic crisis, food safety was not seen as an important matter by the successive ministers, at least not beyond the daily routine, after we had transformed it into the highest priority, given what we witnessed in terms of scandals and crimes against the health of the Lebanese people”.
The former Minister expressed his concerns that the health of the Lebanese people is at risk and warned of the consequences of laxity in allowing these crimes to go unpunished. He urged the National Food Safety Board as well as the Health Ministry to seek the assistance of the international donor authorities in developing and empowering the Lebanese health teams and increasing their staffing, and to cooperate with Lebanese University. He also underscored the need to establish a national laboratory despite the exceptional circumstances in which the country finds itself.
Abou-Faour went on to express his “astonishment that some officials were surprised at the surge in Hepatitis jaundice cases”, adding, “has any of them bothered to look at the catastrophic results of the tests of water wells and public schools water, and even some hospitals? We are indeed giving the disease to our children”.
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