To the Speaker of Parliament
Cc Head, portfolio committee on Health
CC Head, portfolio committee on Agriculture
CC Head, portfolio committee on Trade and Industry
Dear Madam Speaker,
Re-establishment of Inter-Departmental Food Safety Co-ordinating Committee
When President Ramaphosa addressed Parliament in June 2018 on the deadly listeriosis outbreak which had killed nearly 200 people, he clearly expected a food safety agency to be established in the near future. He said the government had put in place a process to establish a food safety agency and the regulatory framework to ensure the requisite high levels of health and safety. This work would have been completed in conjunction with the parliamentary processes that had been put in place to bring the new statutory agency into existence.
As you will be aware, no such agency has been established.
The body that should be finalizing arrangements for the Food Safety Agency is the Inter-Departmental Food Safety Co-ordinating Committee. It comprises members of Parliament’s portfolio committees on Agriculture, Health and Trade and Industry. It was set up in 2012, and by 2019 had worked on developing an integrated food safety framework and the establishment of a Food Safety Agency.
Proponents of the Food Safety Agency supported by President Cyril Ramaphosa will be disappointed at the current Parliament’s failure to re-establish the committee that would finalize this proposal, the Inter-Departmental Food Safety Co-ordinating Committee.
However, as far as I can establish, it has not sat since March 2019 and was not re-established following the election in May 2019. So it has not been able to complete its work on the Food Safety Agency that President Ramaphosa foresaw in 2018.
FairPlay believes that the establishment of a statutory Food Safety Agency is as urgent now as it was in 2018 and the preceding years. We have pointed out the public health risks that such an agency could prevent or combat, including those potentially posed by imported raw meat such as chicken.
For your convenience, I attach the most recent statement by FairPlay on this issue.
FairPlay believes that reconvening the interdepartmental committee so that it can complete its work on a Food Safety Agency deserves your attention, and that of the parliamentary portfolio committees on Health, Agriculture and Trade and Industry, which are copied on this letter.
Yours sincerely,
Francois Baird,
Founder, FairPlay Movement
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