Kebs root for unified food standards

Kenya is likely to adopt a new general national food safety standards law by next month.
The initiative currently under technical discussion would see possible elimination of the current development of specific standard for every food product.
If adopted, Kenya Bureau of Standards said it would further push for similar legislation among the East Africa Community member States and to other bodies such as Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) to remove trade barriers that has seen its goods subjected to rigorous standards conformity check among trade partners.
“Food safety remain core in every government’s regulation, existing gaps needs to be re looked to avoid duplication of efforts,” said Eva Oduor, Managing Director, Kenya Bureau of Standards.
“The rules we are working on would enable us have horizontal standards for certain category of food products to create efficiency, it would also facilitate better regulation by simplifying legislation,” she said. Speaking during a three-day food safety workshop in Nairobi, she urged stakeholders to examine relevance and effectiveness of standards and the technical regulatory regime in Kenya, EAC and Comesa region in the protection of public health and safety.
“We need to fast-track implementation of such general safety rules to be at par with governments worldwide that have moved from developing specific products standards to horizontal standards, which address consumer safety and promote trade,” she said. The three-day workshop was called to discuss a draft general food safety standard paper prepared by the Kenya Food Hygiene Technical Committee.
It will for the duration gather more information and data, which will be used to finalise the document.
Mark Bor, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation said the initiative of a general safety standards would make his ministry’s work easier in enforcing food safety regulation.