BEIRUT: Parliament’s Committee on Public Health and Social Affairs has almost finalized a food safety draft law that calls for the establishment of a single government body that would be tasked with overseeing food safety regulations and practices, the committee head said Monday.
During a press conference, MP Atef Majdalani said that “the committee reached a semi-final draft” of the food safety law. The draft is based on a proposal submitted by the late minister Bassel Fuleihan to Parliament in 2002, he added.
According to Majdalani, the current proposal, which is an amended version of the law submitted by Fuleihan, will need to be reviewed by the committee "one last time after the holidays" before it is submitted to Parliament’s joint committees.
Before its implementation, the draft proposal would also have to be voted on in Parliament, he added.
With regards to the establishment of a unified governmental body, the MP noted that the draft law calls for the establishment of an independent national committee that would work in cooperation with relevant ministries and institutions in order to regulate the implementation and management of the food safety law.
The committee, which would be comprised of academic experts specializing in food safety, would be distinct from other governmental bodies given its financial and administrative independence from the state, he said.
According to the MP, the duties of the committee would include risk monitoring, data collection, research, study publication and project management.
Majdalani noted that the committee would also be responsible for monitoring food production and transport, investigating complaints and facilitating the implementation of food safety policy.
Most importantly, the body would design and implement an alarm system that would make it easier to manage and solve any food safety hazard, in coordination with relevant authorities, he said.
No comments:
Post a Comment