Pamela Shumba, Senior Reporter
THE Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in partnership with the Ministry of Health and Child Care is implementing a National Food and Nutrition Security project to strengthen the national food safety control system in the country.

The implementation of the project comes after concerns that agencies responsible for the food control and safety systems in the country are lacking coherence and creating loopholes in issues to do with quality assurance.

In an interview during a food and security workshop in Bulawayo on Monday, FAO nutrition and food safety officer programmes section Mrs Delilah Takawira-Chigumba said $250 000 has been set aside to fund the project, which will result in improved co-ordination of stakeholders.

“FAO is working with the Ministry of Health and Child Care and other stakeholders to strengthen the national food safety control system in Zimbabwe.

Through this support, FAO is providing its small budget of $250 000, which we call technical co-operation project.

“This was a request from the ministry for us to provide a support system for the country’s food safety control system. When the request came we commissioned a study to understand further the areas that need strengthening. Through that assessment we identified a number of gaps that needed support,” said Mrs Takawira-Chigumba.

She said the gaps included the need to co-ordinate the stakeholders that are involved in food safety in the country.

“We realised that there’s a need to co-ordinate these organisations to avoid duplication of roles and any conflicts that may arise. The assessment also identified that our regulations that manage and control food and safety in Zimbabwe are mostly outdated, reactive and punitive.

“The modern way is to have them being more pro-active and preventive. We don’t want to wait for hazards to occur but prevent them from occurring. The third thing that our assessment identified was the need for training of the food safety players, who include the technical officers,” said Mrs Takawira-Chigumba.

She added that FAO will also run a series of trainings to help build the capacity of safety control stakeholders.

Mrs Takawira-Chigumba said as part of the project, they will be training stakeholders that include the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement, the veterinary department, local authorities, laboratories, analysts in the Government, Standards Association of Zimbabwe (SAZ) to build their capacity on food control mechanisms as well as to co-ordinate their activities.

The ministry’s deputy director of food safety and port health Mr Victor Nyamandi said some food safety agents were in the habit of conducting their business in a manner that is not legally supported, adding that the revision of the Food and Food Standards Act could abate the situation.

“When we applied for financial assistance from FAO, we had realised that there were so many players involved in food security coming into the country, some without legal mandate. So FAO advised that they could only bring in a consultant after carrying out some assistance before they could assist us in terms of improving food security.

“The consultants came and did the assessment and they concentrated on all stakeholders involved in food safety. As one of their findings they realised that the health inspectorate is accountable for food security in the country. So they gave us $250 000 so that we could co-ordinate food control systems,” said Mr Nyamandi.

A number of food safety agents, he added, would come and do things in their own way without consulting other players, resulting in duplication of duties.

“We realised that it’s important for us to come together, define our duties and harmonise our operations. We also want to come up with a national food safety policy and review our laws so that they speak the same language with our interventions,” said Mr Nyamandi.

@pamelashumba1