Council engages ZEMA on banned SA products

By BENNIE MUNDANDO

LUANSHYA Municipal Council is engaging the Zambia Environmental Management Agency (ZEMA) on the best way to dispose of banned imported food stuffs from South Africa, removed from chain-stores shelves and in readiness for destruction by health authorities.

Luanshya mayor Nathan Chanda expressed satisfaction over the quick action by local-based multi-national chain-stores branches stocking imported ready- to- eat meat, dairy products from South Africa following the outbreak of the deadly listeria disease in that country.

He said the council was sceptical about disposing off the products at its dumping site for fear that scavengers may ransack the products, posing a danger of contamination.

Mr. Chanda said the local authority had put in place precautionary measures aimed at seeing to it that, illegal consumption or sale of ready-to meat was prevented as a way of protecting the mining town from the listeria which has affected South Africa.

“Luanshya Municipal Council has started the process of engaging the ZEMA with the aim of seeking permission to burn all the banned food stuffs which cannot be disposed of at the council dump sites which are infested with scavengers who could consume or sell the condemned imported food stuffs to unsuspecting members of the public,” Mr. Chanda said.

He explained that Government had directed chain-stores stocking importing banned food stuffs to recall or allow health authorities to have them destroyed.

Mr. Chanda, who led a delegation of senior management officials and public health inspectors yesterday, checked all the multinational outlets to see if they were complying with the Government directives to ban meat imported from South Africa as a way of preventing listeria disease which is reported to have so far claimed some lives in South Africa from spreading in Zambia.

According to a notice of seizure and Certificate of Condemnation issued to Luanshya’s Town Centre and Roan Mall Shoprite outlets by health authorities, the chain-store had quantified the suspected food products which had been isolated and stored within the premises as instructed.

Apart from Zambia, Mozambique, Namibia and Botswana have also issued a ban on imported processed meat, diary, fruit and vegetables from South Africa after the deadly listeria outbreak was linked to a factory in that country.