Five hundred traders have been accredited by the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) to sell palm oil in five markets in Accra, as part of strategies to discourage the sale and distribution of adulterated palm oil.
They are located at the Agbogbloshie, Odawna, Madina and Makola Number One and Two markets.
The accredited traders have been given identification tags bearing their names, pictures, name of market and serial numbers.
The Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the FDA, Mr John Odame-Darkwah, who made this known at a media briefing in Accra yesterday, explained that the accredited traders were required to wear the tags as an indication of compliance in the sale of non-adulterated palm oil.
He said others who sold palm oil at the Mallam Atta, Weija, Ashaiman and Tema markets, would also be accredited in the coming weeks, while a database of producers and distributors had been created to facilitate the tracing of adulterated palm oil that might be found on the market.
Mr Odame-Darkwah encouraged the general public to patronise palm oil from traders who displayed the identification tags.
Background
Large quantities of adulterated palm oil were confiscated by FDA from 10 major markets in Accra and Tema last October.
The products, which were being sold at the Mallam Atta, Dome, Dansoman, Agbogbloshie and Kaneshie markets, all in Accra, were said to have been adulterated with Sudan IV, an industrial dye used in the colouration of plastics and other synthetic products.
Large quantities of the oil were also seized at the Madina, Makola No 2, Tema Community One and Ashaiman markets.
The palm oil was adulterated with the dye to enhance and maintain its colour to make it more appealing to consumers.
Officials of the FDA said initial laboratory analyses conducted on samples of the adulterated oil showed active dye (sudee) substance of about 98 per cent.
Sudan IV dye has the potential of causing cancer when mixed with food, and as such constitute a risk to public health.
Strategy
Mr Odame-Darkwah further explained that accrediting the traders to sell palm oil had become necessary in the FDA’s quest to rid the markets of adulterated palm oil, which had become a major public concern and resulted in a drop in the sale of the edible oil.
He said the FDA in collaboration with the Ghana Palm Oil Producers Association, held several stakeholder consultation and market sensitisation programmes in the five markets, and led to many of the traders surrendering their products for voluntary testing.
“The FDA also sampled products from second cycle institutions nationwide and analysed them and those found to have been adulterated with the Sudan IV dye was destroyed”, Mr Odame-Darkwah added.
He said after the initial exercise, the FDA took samples from the Accra and Tema metropolises and re-tested them, and the results indicated that 90 per cent of the palm oil was free from the dye.
While assuring the general public that the FDA would continue to protect public health and safety, Mr Odame-Darkwah urged consumers to be vigilant when buying palm oil.
Prosecutions
The Commander in charge of the Drugs Enforcement Unit of the Ghana Police Service, DSP David Hukportie, said that two separate dockets on the case had been prepared on the 22 traders who were arrested in connection with the adulterated palm oil in October.
“It is taking us a long time to put them before court because the case is being treated as an organised crime and we have to be able to trace the source of the importation of the Sudan IV dye, since the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has made us aware that they did not grant any permit for the importation of the chemical into the country”, DSP Hukportie told the Daily Graphic.
He further said their investigations at the production point had also revealed that the chemical was supplied to producers in Accra by some distributors, following alleged customer complaint that the palm oil was not appealing.
DSP Hukportie, however, promised that the unit would pursue the case to its logical conclusion to serve as a deterrent.
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