Ya Libnan

New draft law ensures Safer Lebanese Food

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abou faourLebanon Health Minister Wael Abu Faour and MP Atef Majdalani hailed on Thursday the approval of a draft-law on food safety by the joint parliamentary committees , hoping for its swift approval by the parliament

“The draft-law has become a reality and we would soon have a modern law that protects food,” said Majdalani during a joint press conference with Abu Faour following the approval of the draft-law.

Majdalani heads parliament’s public health and social affairs committee.

Abu Faour thanked Speaker Nabih Berri and all political parties who backed his campaign against food violators.

He hoped that Berri would call for a swift session to approve the draft law.

Abu Faour also hailed ex-Minister Bassel Fleihan, who was killed in the Feb. 2005 bombing that targeted former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri’s convoy.

Fleihan was the first official in Lebanon to shed light on the matter of food safety.

“The guarantee to our food safety campaign comes through legislation. We made a step forward today,” said Abu Faour, who in October launched a nation-wide drive against violators.

Around three businessmen were arrested over several violations, the judiciary is taking its course and the campaign is expanding to areas across Lebanon, he told reporters.

“The content of the draft-law is balanced but could have been better,” he said.

But Abu Faour expressed hope that the approval of the draft-law “would give hope to the citizens that the state is serious.”

“The Lebanese should expect safer food Food once the law is implemented ,” he told reporters.

Abu Faour also said his ministry will carry out raids in restaurants to guarantee the implementation of the anti-smoking law, which entered into force in 2012.

Law 174 prohibits smoking in all enclosed bars, restaurants and cafes in Lebanon.

Last December Abu Faour ordered the shutdown of the food and medicine warehouses at the airport, citing poor sanitation and expired items and called the facility an execution chamber. He also vowed to combat the “mafias” linked to the food safety file and acknowledged that his campaign has been met with resistance.

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3 responses to “New draft law ensures Safer Lebanese Food”

  1. 5thDrawer Avatar
    5thDrawer

    “Fleihan was the first official in Lebanon to shed light on the matter of food safety”
    And there you are, folks …. NO thought of ‘food safety’ since 2005.

    1. 5thDrawer Avatar
      5thDrawer

      Friends who are tired of having the shits every month are beginning to think Faour will become one the ‘Heroes Of Lebanon’. But they do recognize the hard task he sets, in the sense that Lebanon has other ‘ministers’ who do not perform their jobs so well. If there are too many fingers in a pie, eventually one of them will deposit some ‘bugs’.
      For instance, if the ‘Agriculture’ lessons are not given to the farmers by that minister, and the uneducated farmers think the ‘fast-grow-high-yield’ of raw sewage is good for them, and everyone else, then Faour’s task will be thwarted every time he tests the lettuce. Or the Marijuana.
      The ‘water minister’ isn’t exactly coming up with clean hands from the kitchen either.
      Will that ‘bill’ proposed, which they call a ‘draft law’, bring any relief when the whole system is constipated? The old ‘medicines’ in the warehouse aren’t going to open a bung-hole very well.

      1. 5thDrawer Avatar
        5thDrawer

        And, we still wait to hear of ‘passage’.

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