A consignment of rotten frozen chicken which was declared unsafe for human consumption has been discovered on the Ghanaian market.
According to the Herald Newspaper, earlier reports indicated that three containers loaded with chicken from Holland, had been seized at the Port, after mandated institutions like the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) and the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), declared the consignments unwholesome.
[contextly_sidebar id=”bqh8nE4ptXKZJ2Cv57zAWRiQrgZJq0YV”]However, the three containers, including a fourth one which the FDA said it found very difficult to open for inspection, managed to leave the port to the market.
The paper said the FDA’s officer-in-charge of the Tema Port, Solomon Agampim, had confirmed that the unwholesome chicken products were cleared from the port and sent all the way to Techiman in the Brong Ahafo Region.
But the Head of Public Affairs of the Food and Drugs Authority, on the Citi Breakfast Show on Monday, said investigations showed that the products had not moved from Accra.
He added that, the FDA had located the products, and sealed the container, awaiting results from a test conducted by the veterinary service.
“On the day the first container was being cleared, they noticed that there was another container, so what our officers did was that, they tried to open that container which belongs to the same company to inspect it, but it had been sealed. The clearing agent promised that on Monday, they will bring a welder to open it, but they realized that the container was on Monday cleared [on the FDA’s blind side].”
“What we did was that, we called the clearing agent, and he told us that the product was in Techiman, so we called our office immediately in Brong Ahafo to start making investigations on the product, only for us to go back to the warehouse to notice that the clearing agent gave us wrong information. The whole product was still in Accra. On Wednesday, we saw 2,800 cartons of the product that one didn’t have a foul smell, and we called the veterinary service who took samples to do analysis, the results I don’t know yet. We have sealed that, and they cannot be touched,” he said.
Mr. Lartey noted that, the FDA officer at the port cannot be blamed for the clearance of the unwholesome product from the port, since he took the right steps within his power to ensure that the right thing was done.
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By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana