VietNamNet Bridge – As the National Assembly began debate on a draft Food Safety Law on June 1, street vendors were a popular target of criticism, and sensitive foreign tummies an object of concern.

Deputy Ho Thi Thu Hang (Vinh Long) said Vietnam has three million victims of food poisoning annually, causing economic losses of four trillion dong (over US$210 million). Hang declared that bacteria can be introduced at any stage, whether processing, packaging, storage or distribution. Without knowing its origin, the problem is unsolvable.

Deputy Nguyen Lan Dung (photo) observed that only in Vietnam does one find cÆ¡m bụi (literally,“dusty rice”). “I don’t understand why we agree to eat rice with dust. No other nation sells food on the roadside, the Dak Lak deputy ínsisted. Cheap ‘peoples’ meals’ [cÆ¡m bình dân] are okay, but they ought to be sold indoors.

Deputy Nguyen Minh Thuyet (Lang Son) said he was glad to see the Ministry of Health assigned to be the “conductor” to control food hygiene. Still, Thuyet worried, can the “conductor” do his job properly if he can’t also play the roles of “violinist” and “trumpeter”? By that he meant that responsibility for ensuring food safety should be entirely within the Health Ministry’s purview, and not parceled out to an inter-ministerial committee or steering board.

Thuyet added that provincial officials must be held to account when food poisoning happens in a province.

Deputy Nguyen Lan Dung proposed that the Ministry of Health study the incidence of micro-organisms in street foods, saying that it may reveal many surprises. “Take nước mía (sugarcane juice) for example,” Dung said. “It’s sold everywhere on Vietnam’s streets. Do the deputies know that farmers soak sugarcane in ponds so it will yield more juice?”

Dung said that after the cane is stripped of its skin, it lies on the pavement, a magnet for flies, until it is pressed for juice. Glasses are not washed, just rinsed in a bucket of water.

“That’s maybe OK for us Vietnamese,” Dung asserted, “because we are acquainted with our local bacteria. However, any foreigner who dares drink nước mía is going to be poisoned.”

Deputy Nguyen Thi Thanh Hoa (Bac Ninh) noted that the draft law envisions requiring street food sellers to have enough clean water and clean tools. These conditions can’t be enforced, she said, because street vendors are highly mobile.

Deputy Nguyen Thi Bach Mai (Tay Ninh) said it’s not enough just to ban food with unclean and torn packing caused by the transportation process. There ought to be a broader proscription against “using packaging that can poison food and be unsafe for users. . . . We’ll make a mistake if we only pay attention to food quality, not to packaging quality,” Mai emphasized.

Deputy Pham Thi Thanh Huong (Binh Dinh) argued that all food – even when it’s sold without packaging – ought to have a label. She said that in many food poisoning cases, technical personnel are unable to identify the origin of the bad food.

Deputy Truong Thi Thu Ha said the fines proposed for violations of food hygiene rules are too light. (The draft proposes a minimum fine equal to the value of unsafe food, and a maximum of seven times that.) With fines set so low, Ha argued, the offense will be repeated over and over. The Dong Nai deputy proposed to raise the minimum fine by at least 10 times and the maximum fine by hundreds of times of the value of unsafe food.

Deputy Bui Thi Le Phi (Can Tho) agreed with Ha, and recommended that term “seriously influence” be clarified with respect to the maximum fines. Does that mean a degree of food poisoning that causes death or miscarriage, she asked.

PV