Minister of Health Nguyen Quoc Trieu’s proposal to set up the National Committee for Food Safety was rejected by the National Assembly Standing Committee on January 19.

Trieu said that with 9.4 million farmer households directly producing agricultural products and with traders selling cookings at small markets, not to mention a long border which enables a large volume of food imports, now is the time to be setting up a national committee on food security.

The Minister suggested that this committee would belong to the government and its members would be officials from related ministries.

“This committee will help reduce overlaps and clearly define responsibility. If anything happens, the National Assembly will only need to question this committee, not several ministries. At present, at least three ministries of Health, Agriculture and Industry-Trade are involved in this task,” he analysed.

However, this idea was not supported by the National Assembly Standing Committee. Chairman of the NA Office Tran Dinh Dan said: “I’ve participated in the Committee for Population and Family Planning and Committee for Protection of Children but they operate ineffectively”.

Chairman of the NA Committee for Defense and Security Le Quang Binh added: “Many officials complained that they have to join many committees and steering boards. They don’t have time to attend all meetings of these committees and boards. Minister Trieu himself said at a question and answer sessions that members of committees are deputy ministers but they rarely attended these committees’ meeting but instead sent their assistants meetings.”

NA Vice Chairman Uong Chu Luu said the legal status of national committees is unclear. The government apparatus previously included ministries, ministry-level agencies and committees.

Since the Constitution was amended in 1992, only the Committee for Ethnic Groups, Government Inspectorate and the State Bank of Vietnam are maintained as ministry-level agencies. Other committees were added to ministries. Existing committees under the government mainly work as advisory agencies.

“The establishment of the National Committee for Food Safety is contrary to the current policy. On the other hand, food control is the mission of many ministries and sector. If this committee is set up, it will make disorder,” Luu said.

The NA Standing Committee, therefore, agreed with the draft bill on food safety, which gives the responsibility of controlling food hygiene and safety to the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Ministry of Industry and Trade. The government will make clear the job of the three ministries related to food hygiene.

This bill will be finalized for approval in the NA session this May.

In the last three months, many unsafe food cases have been detected in Hanoi, HCM City, Da Nang, etc.

PV