BEIRUT: The conditions inside Beirut airport’s food and medicine warehouses remain "tragic," Health Minister Wael Abu Faour announced Monday, but said the overall conditions in the country had improved.
“The ratio of samples that meet the standards is increasing, and there are improvements in the tests’ results,” Abu Faour said in a televised news conference, referring to food samples taken by his ministry’s inspection teams.
“The establishments’ owners are requesting more lab tests. This is a positive indicator and should become self-evident.”
Since its launching in mid-november, Abu Faour’s campaign against food safety violators has expanded to target a variety of establishments, including the country’s airport and seaports.
“The campaign is entering some shadow areas now,” the minister said. “I’m talking about administrative, not political shadow areas.”
Abu Faour said his ministry had started witnessing more responsiveness by the other state institutions, and that the judiciary’s interaction with the food safety cases showed significant progress.
He said police were generally responsive but some hesitation has been witnessed in law enforcement in many areas.
The minister praised the judiciary’s decision to arrest several people over the expired sugar cases in Tripoli’s port, and called on the Economy Ministry to shut down the private sugar refinery operating in the port and the warehouses. He said the recommended closure was temporary until the situation is fixed.
However, Abu Faour revealed that the conditions in the food and medicine warehouses at Beirut’s airports remained “tragic,” noting that he sent a letter to the public works minister asking him to launch reform projects immediately.
“Nothing has been done yet,” he said. “The garbage dump is still a garbage dump, and the tragic situation is still tragic.”
The minister also tackled the State Security’s detention of a Syrian merchant who had been bringing expired food from Syria and selling them to local restaurants.
Abu Faour identified the restaurants buying from the merchant as Al-Mazar in Sadd al-Boushrieh, Mazat in Mkalles, Al-Zaghloul in Shiyah, Al-Agha on the Hadi Nasrallah highway, Barbar in Hamra and Spears, Harout in Hamra, Grand Cafe in Downtown Beirut, Farrouj Abou Sami in Burj Abi Haidar, Al-Halabi in Qasqas and Al-Rabebeh in Barbir.
Abu Faour expressed his disappointment with media, whose interest in the food safety campaign had “un-aspiringly” declined after the first month.
“The last list [of food safety violators] that we published just before New Year’s Eve did not appear in any media outlet,” he said, calling on media to reclaim its role as the main ally of the ministry in this campaign.
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