By: Nyima Sillah
Bai Dodou Jallow, Director of Scientific Affairs of the Food Safety and Quality Authority has said the recent information circulating on social media regarding phallus that was found in food is still news to his office.
In an exclusive with The Voice on Tuesday, Jallow said: “The information is still news to us, this is not something that we have seen or verified. The organ that has been talked about is more of a human organ, not an animal organ but this is just news to us.
“We have tried to check during our inspections to see if we can verify this, but we have not been able to verify it to see that there is any place in The Gambia where someone is selling food which has human parts in it we have not seen.”
Jallow explained that they have many protocols in their office depending on the type of information that comes from social media. Adding that they do not ignore the things that they see on social media but they try to take them seriously until investigations are done.
“Normally we are careful this is why before we reach out to the public on any circulating social media news we take our time to avoid unnecessary escalation, we need some more information and sometimes we go as far as getting scientific facts to back whatever communication we have before dispersing it,” he added.
He strictly warned that anyone that might try to do it, or have done it should know that the authority is here and they will catch them someday because they have been doing their work and some are already facing Charges.
More so, he said some of these videos that come up on social media could be false sometimes and advised people to be careful of the videos and audios on social media.
“The Authority will try to do its best in official control of food safety. We will make sure we try to control the safety of food in the market. The challenge that we have is that food is sold everywhere. We have corner shops also everywhere and the food inspectors that we have cannot be in all these places at the same time.
“So people need to be sensitised to be able to make some wise decisions and get to authority in case they see something wrong. That is why we have our toll-free number 1299 that anyone can call for free and give us information,” he sounded.
He revealed that Food Safety is now present in all the regions. And the inspectors go to the markets and the ‘Lumos’ to do the inspections. Thus the numbers are still limited but they are available across the country.
He, therefore, assured the public of the authority’s vigilance and noted that they are empowered by law to do their work and when they find anyone doing anything wrong they normally follow the law in enforcing the rules that they have.