In 20 days,: K-P food authority imposed fines worth Rs2.6m

K-PFA DG says most of schools found to have unhygienic environment

PESHAWAR: In the 20 days since it started working, the province’s maiden food authority imposed Rs2.6 million in fines across the province and served 5,000 notices.

This was disclosed by the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Food Authority (K-PFA) Director General Riaz Khan Mahsud in a news conference at the directorate in Peshawar on Thursday as the authority released a performance report for its first 20 days.

Mahsud said that during this period, they had managed to establish their identity across the province.



He added that since the authority was notified on March 21, they had sealed nine factories, conducted more than 6,000 inspection visits across the province. During this, they had collected Rs2.6 million in fines imposed for violating the Food Safety Act 2014.

Mahsud said that so far, 5,000 improvement notices had been served to various food outlets including bakers, hotels and restaurants.

“We have been strictly checking educational institutes to ensure that banned items such as soft, energy and carbonated drinks and loose papadom are not being sold,” the K-PFA director said.



“In this regard, 278 schools have been inspected so far and some of these were charged for not complying with food safety standards,” Mahsud said. He added that 90 per cent of the inspected schools were found to have an unhygienic environment and where the water tanks were full of fungus.

Replying to a question, the K-PFA director general explained that the authority has also checked 91 factories. Of these, nine were sealed for poor hygiene and for violating food safety standards.

Mahsud also expressed deep concerns over the usage of expired items and raw material while processing foodstuff. He said that more than two thousand-kilogram expired items have been discarded during inspections.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 13^th, 2018.