Tereza Jeremiah
Africa-Press – South-Sudan. The Uganda Bureau of Standards confirmed the presence of high aflatoxin concentration in some of the 26 trucks recently released by South Sudan.
The Ugandan authorities, however, stated that they would investigate the matter with the companies’ owners.
The Ugandan government retested the consignment in the 26 trucks recently released from South Sudanese to the Elegu border after the Juba administration discovered from a preliminary test that the maize flour was substandard and contained aflatoxins.
The food items retested included maize grain, maize flour, dry beans, sorghum grain, cassava flour, and finger millet grains.
In May, the South Sudan National Bureau of Standard (SSNB) did preliminary testing on the foods in the trucks, leading to the confinement of about 70 trucks for a month.
According to experts, aflatoxins can occur in foods such as groundnuts, maize, rice, and dried food as a result of fungal contamination before and after harvest, large doses of aflatoxins can be life-threatening.
The team (SSNB) was composed of Custom, the Bureau of Standard, the Border Police and the National Revenue Authority (NRA).
Meanwhile, the Executive Director of UNBS, David Ediru, told NTV Uganda that not all the 26 trucks had contaminated items.
“Uganda today has confirmed that some of the maize flour has aflatoxins, among four grains of maize were found having a high level of aflatoxins. We want to investigate with the owner where they got this from,” he said.
The Acting Executive Director of Ugandan Grain Council, Henry Musisi, said trading outside the border needs to be carried out with caution to ensure that no contaminated food items sneak into the country.
Source: The City Review South Sudan
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