Fifty-one per cent sachet water not certified - FDB

Agona Swedru, Dec 11, GNA - The Food and Drugs Board (FDB) has appealed to sachet water producers to ensure that their products are certified and approved by the relevant agencies before selling them to the public. According to the Board, about 51 per cent of the sachet water produced across the country is not certified by the FDB and the Ghana Standards Board, a situation they described as very dangerous to the health of the public.

Mr Kwesi Mensah, Resource Person of the Board, made these known at a four- day sensitization workshop on Environmental sanitation, food hygiene and food safety for food vendors, sellers of sachet water and other consumable item at Agona Swedru in the Central Region. The participants were drawn from Agona Nyakrom, Bobikuma, Nkum and suburbs of the Agona Swedru Municipality. "To ensure the safety of the consumers, the Food and Drugs Board has rolled out programmes and educational campaigns for producers and vendors of the products" Mr Mensah said.

He said the Board would soon enforce Article 305(B) of PNDC Law 305, which stipulates that vendors who violate the rules be fined 500 Ghana Cedis or suffer two years imprisonment in hard Labour. Mr Mensah said education on television and radio had not achieved the desired objective, hence the need to organize a number of workshops to educate producers and vendors. The Resource Person cautioned women who cooked food, especially "Wakye", not to use salt petre popularly known as "Kanwa" to prepare the food because "it is poisonous and causes stroke, blindness and impotence to men". According to Mr Mensah majority of Ghanaians had contracted dangerous diseases and died prematurely as a result of the contaminated food they consumed.

He appealed to the government to open district offices of the Board throughout the country to ensure the effective monitoring of activities of sachet water producers in the rural areas. Mr Seth Boadi, Deputy Coordinating Director of the Agona West Municipal Assembly, urged sachet water vendors and food sellers to abide by the rules and regulations of FDB to ensure the safety of consumers.