Overlapping functions: New body may trump KMC’s food dept

Sindh Food Authority would regulate prices, standards of essential commodities in province.

KARACHI:

As the Sindh government prepares to establish the Sindh Food Authority, the fate of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation’s (KMC) food and quality control department has become murky.

In February this year, food minister Nasir Hussain Shah signaled setting up a food authority in Sindh, similar to that in Punjab.



Similarly, KMC’s chief food inspector, Abdul Waheed Bhatti, told the Sindh High Court during a hearing against hike in dairy prices in April that a summary has been sent to the chief minister to establish the authority, which would regulate prices and standards of essential commodities in the province.

The act

The summary, available with The Express Tribune, clearly states that the draft of the Sindh Food Authority Act 2015 has been prepared in consultation with relevant departments, including local government, home department, Sindh board of revenue, health department, agriculture department and industries and commerce department.

It is stated in the summary that most of the food business is located in major urban centres of the province, such as Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur, Larkana, Mirpurkhas and Shaheed Benazirabad.

Hence, the major chunk of the authority’s work is likely to remain confined to Karachi and other divisional headquarters of the province. Therefore, there is no need to establish offices at district levels in the future, reads the summary.

It further explains that there won’t be any overlapping of functions of the proposed food authority with the local government.

Overshadowing KMC

Despite the summary’s claim that there won’t be any overlapping with related departments, KMC administrator Laeeq Ahmed, a former food secretary who has also drafted the summary, told The Express Tribune the KMC’s food and quality control department would become dormant once the authority is established.

However, KMC’s food and quality control senior director Mukhtar Husain said their department would continue functioning even after the formation of the food authority.

He said they had adopted the Pure Food Act 1960 when the KMC was formed, and if the Sindh Food Authority is formed, it will have its own law.

Powerless inspectors

An official of the KMC’s food and quality control department, on the condition of anonymity, told The Express Tribune how powerless KMC’s food inspectors are.

The official revealed that inspectors are only authorised to take samples for examination and cannot serve notices on eateries operating under unhygienic conditions.

If the result of the sample is negative, he said they send it to the judicial magistrate who is empowered to take action.

After serving notices, if nothing has been done to improve, he said the judicial magistrate has the power to fine the eatery with Rs1,000 to Rs0.1 million. “But that never happens,” he claimed.

The official said they have 12 food inspectors throughout the city, while at least 200 food inspectors are needed to cover a city of this size. He explained that in 2015, a total of 543 cases of unhygienic food and adulterations were sent to the courts, which issued fines worth Rs500 to Rs3,000.

Out of 5,000 cases in the last 10 years, he said hardly eight to 10 were sentenced to prison for merely six months due to food law violations, the official said.

According to the official, the Punjab Food Authority gives food inspectors powers to seal the eatery and even fine them. “They have magisterial powers,” the official said adding that is what the food inspectors in Sindh need, which they may get through the Sindh Food Authority.

To this, Ahmed responded that magisterial powers would only be given to chief food inspectors in the authority.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 7^th, 2016.