Truck drivers collaborate with FDA to test palm oil

Some drivers who cart palm oil to various markets have sent their trucks loaded with oil to the Foods and Drugs Authority (FDA) for testing, following public alert that some of the edible palm oil contains Sudan IV.

The drivers, who said the trade has taken a down-turn indicated their readiness to collaborate with the FDA to ensure that palm oil they cart to the markets were safe for consumption.

They have, therefore, volunteered to take the palm oil to the FDA for testing before they send them to market centres to avoid swoops in markets, which they say had not been good for business.

Samples of the palm oil have since been taken for testing before it is released onto the market.

The palm oil business is in bad times after the FDA drew public attention that palm oil containing Sudan IV is a likely cause of cancer.

The Authority had asked suppliers to volunteer their products or risk being punished, if test on seized products showed the oil was not edible.

The FDA had earlier revealed that 98 percent of earlier test it had done on impounded barrels of palm oil showed it contained Sudan IV and had cautioned the public against consuming palm oil.

“Zomie (palm oil) contains a lot of Sudan IV which has carcinogenic substances that can cause a lot of health complications,”

The FDA has heightened its market surveillance after discovering palm oil samples picked from ten markets in the Greater Accra Region contained the highly dangerous textile dye which causes cancer.

Out of 50 palm oil samples the FDA randomly took from various markets, 98 percent of them tested positive for the Sudan IV dye.

Sudan IV dye in palm oil was detected outside Ghana some months ago. The British Foods Standard Agency (FSA) issued a recall notice to a sales outlet that stocked unlabelled Ghanaian palm oil and which was said to have contained the carcinogenic Sudan dye.