{"id":52676,"date":"2023-09-16T10:39:50","date_gmt":"2023-09-16T10:39:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/all-news\/fda-vows-to-strengthen-food-safety-checks"},"modified":"2023-09-16T10:54:23","modified_gmt":"2023-09-16T10:54:23","slug":"fda-vows-to-strengthen-food-safety-checks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/policy\/fda-vows-to-strengthen-food-safety-checks","title":{"rendered":"FDA vows to strengthen food safety checks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Emmanuel Ntirenganya<\/b><\/p>\n

Africa-Press – Rwanda. <\/strong><\/span>Rwanda Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) must act proactively while inspecting food safety in line with protecting the health of consumers, parliament\u2019s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said. They warned the agency about the current situation where safety monitoring is inadequate.<\/p>\n

The observation was made on Thursday, September 14, during the PAC hearings in which FDA officials were responding to queries exposed by the Auditor General\u2019s report for the financial year that ended on June 30, 2022.<\/p>\n

According to the audit report, among 110 safety inspections that Rwanda FDA had planned to conduct in 2020-2021 and 2021-2022, it only carried out one \u2013 implying less than one per cent of the inspections it had to make over the two-year period.<\/p>\n

Currently, the food safety monitoring at the agency is understaffed \u2013 with only two workers (inspectors), according to its officials.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the agency leaders pledged to solve the identified issues through measures including the increase of post-market surveillance personnel.<\/p>\n

The Deputy Director General of Rwanda FDA, Martine Umuhoza, said there are some inspections that are carried out \u201cbut it is like putting out a fire\u201d, which means that they are meant to respond to reports from the public (consumers) about the availability of substandard products in the market.<\/p>\n

She said when there are people caught making illicit brews, the inspectors make routine checks to ascertain whether standards levels improved.<\/p>\n

\u201cInspections are made, and we have related data we showed to auditors, but they told us that they are not among those that were planned for,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

PAC Chairperson Valens Muhakwa said the situation represents a weakness that should be addressed through effective planning, to avoid reliance on just putting out fires (or inspections for emergency purposes).<\/p>\n

The division manager of pharmacovigilance and food safety monitoring at Rwanda FDA, Razaro Ntirenganya, said they conducted inspections but the problem exposed by auditors is that they do not match the plan. He indicated that they performed 49 inspections in 2020-2021.<\/p>\n

These inspections, he added, followed visits to more than 1,290 factories and trading places, as a result of reports from different districts.<\/p>\n

Razaro said the agency was relatively new (it started its regulatory mandate in 2018), and there were many quality and safety issues that had to be addressed.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor instance, in 2020-2021, we had cases of people who were harmed by alcoholic drinks, including those who became blind, among other major consequences,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Muhakwa told Rwanda FDA officials that they should base on the identified cases for effective planning, instead of conducting emergency inspections only.<\/p>\n

In response, Razaro said it is expected that in this financial year, the food safety monitoring department will get seven more workers \u2013 to make it a nine-staff team \u2013 in line with strengthening food safety monitoring across the country.<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Rwanda<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Emmanuel Ntirenganya Africa-Press – Rwanda. Rwanda Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) must act proactively while inspecting food safety in line with protecting the health of consumers, parliament\u2019s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said. They warned the agency about the current situation where safety monitoring is inadequate. The observation was made on Thursday, September 14, during the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":52675,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,14],"tags":[760,763,758],"class_list":["post-52676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-policy","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-rwanda","tag-rwanda"],"yoast_head":"\nFDA vows to strengthen food safety checks - Rwanda<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Rwanda Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) must act proactively while inspecting food safety in line with protecting the heal ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/policy\/fda-vows-to-strengthen-food-safety-checks\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"FDA vows to strengthen food safety checks\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Rwanda Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) must act proactively while inspecting food safety in line with protecting the heal ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/policy\/fda-vows-to-strengthen-food-safety-checks\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Rwanda\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-09-16T10:39:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-09-16T10:54:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sites\/23\/2023\/09\/sm_1694848969.734984.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"750\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/policy\/fda-vows-to-strengthen-food-safety-checks#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/policy\/fda-vows-to-strengthen-food-safety-checks\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"FDA vows to strengthen food safety checks\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-09-16T10:39:50+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-09-16T10:54:23+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/policy\/fda-vows-to-strengthen-food-safety-checks\"},\"wordCount\":476,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/policy\/fda-vows-to-strengthen-food-safety-checks#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sites\/23\/2023\/09\/sm_1694848969.734984.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Rwanda\",\"Rwanda\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"Policy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/policy\/fda-vows-to-strengthen-food-safety-checks#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/policy\/fda-vows-to-strengthen-food-safety-checks\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/policy\/fda-vows-to-strengthen-food-safety-checks\",\"name\":\"FDA vows to strengthen food safety checks - 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