About 12,800 pieces of expired FanDango, a frozen ice cream product, were yesterday destroyed by officials of the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority in Tema.
The products, which were imported from neighbouring Nigeria in a forty-footer container by Fan Milk Ghana Limited, producers of frozen fruit-based ice cream, were found to have expired on December 28, 2017.
The duty payable on the cargo was GH¢4,953.39 while the total value of the cargo was GH¢21,407.66.
The Customs Chief Revenue Officer at the Refrigerated Yard (Reefer Yard) at the Tema Port, Ms Dorothy Arhin, told the Daily Graphic that the contents of the cargo, which arrived in the country on January 7, 2018 from Nigeria, were found to have expired after physical examinations had been conducted on them.
“We, therefore, notified the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA), the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) and the relevant agencies who after a series of laboratory tests, revealed that the products were unwholesome for consumption,” she explained.
According to Ms Arhin, Fan Milk Ghana would be surcharged with the destruction cost.
Officials of Fan Milk Ghana, who were at the port prior to the destruction of the products at the Kpone landfill site, declined to comment.
Used mattresses
In a related development, Customs officials are awaiting results from the GSA on large quantities of used mattresses that were confiscated in the last quarter of 2017 and early 2018.
The tests, according to the Chief Revenue Officer in charge of the State Warehouse at the Tema Port, Mr Lawrence Anang, would determine whether his outfit should destroy the mattresses or hand them over to their owners.
He stated that following a ban on the commercial importation of used mattresses and other items into the country, Customs frequently confiscated such cargoes on arrival at the port.
“If laboratory analysis on them proves otherwise, we have no choice but to destroy them in order not to endanger public health,” Mr Anang stated.
<<Print>>