US$50, 000 for National Food Safety Project

Dr Omar Touray the Chairman of Codex Committees has said that there is over 50,000 Dollars for the national food safety project. Dr. Touray made these remarks at the launching of the Technical Regulations Co-ordination Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) and Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) at the conference room of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Employment in Banjul on Wednesday.

"Where we are today, we have been able to mobilise some resources to support the strengthening of the the food safety system in the country. Two among the project has been able to prepare and get approval for where the first face of the by-security project has recently been able to accord 50,000 dollars from the FAO to start the second face in the beginning of this month", he said.

According to Dr. Touray, the primary responsibility of his committee is to look into the preparation of food standards and standards of animals and plants health.

"The primary responsibility of this committee is to look into the preparation of food standards and standards of animal health and plants health since we are coming to being. We have been able to make strategic plans on national food safety system including the animals and plants health, and this document has been harmonised with the African strategy going also from the codex elimentarius commissions strategic plans''Dr Touray stated.

For Dr Touray, the agenda for Codex now is to move on or speed up the process of putting in place national standards for food safety. "They have been able to develop the fats and oil standards, and by next week they will start working on producing standards for groundnut, mineral water, poultry, food labelling, advertisements of foods and street foods", he stated.

The Codex Chairman also emphasised that they have limitations with regards to transformation of standards to regulation.

He however added that Codex has its own limitations, as it cannot transform standards into regulations.

In his launching remarks, the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Trade Industry and Employment Mr.Yusupha Kah commended the committee for their initiation. He said it timely and welcoming, describing it as a step forward towards his Ministry's efforts to set up the structures that will pave the way for the establishment of a standard body in the Gambia. This, he said is particularly important giving the fact that the Gambia rely heavily on imported goods and services.