Food & Drugs law to be reviewed

The Foods and Drugs Board (FDB) has engaged the services of legal experts to study the law on foods and drugs for a possible review to make it more relevant to the needs of the country.

The Reverend Jonathan Y. Martey, Head of Quality Control/Laboratory of the Board, said this at a seminar on the law, organised for the Tema branch of the Ghana Chamber of Commerce in Tema at the weekend.

He explained that the decision of the FDB was necessitated by the challenges posed to foods and drugs sellers, in the face of global technological advancement. Rev. Martey said a draft review law would be submitted to the appropriate authorities for study, comments and presentation to Parliament for consideration.

He regretted that despite the existing law, vendors continued to work under unhygienic conditions to the detriment of the health of consumers. Rev. Martey, therefore, appealed to individuals, organisations and the district assemblies to collaborate with the FDB to enforce the law.

He said: "We see people selling under filthy conditions while sheep, goats and other animals roam the communities, posing health hazard to the people, yet the district assemblies do nothing about the situation."

Rev. Martey advised the district assemblies to enforce the byelaw on the sale of foods and drugs instead of concentrating on the collection of taxes from vendors, though some operated under deplorable conditions.

He said it was an offence to put up an advertisement without FDB vetting the contents. Rev. Martey expressed regret that some clients, after vetting added their version to their advertisement contrary to FDP regulation.

He said though the Board has organised seminars to educate advertisers and media personnel on the law on advertisement, some preferred contravening the rule and paying huge penalties to doing the right thing.