Wezi Tjaronda
1 October 2008
Windhoek — The City of Windhoek has contacted laboratories in South Africa to ask if they can perform an analysis for melamine contamination in the event that tainted milk is found locally.
Namibia does not have the equipment to perform such analyses locally, according to the city's manager: corporate communications and tourism, Ndangi Katoma.
He said, "In the event that contaminated milk be found, analysis on the chemical melamine cannot be done in Namibia because the local laboratories lack the testing method and equipment to perform such analysis locally."
Katoma said the city made the contact despite having found no Chinese milk in local shops. Some Chinese shops though have several milk flavoured drinks, yoghurts and snacks made with milk.
Katoma said during routine inspections, city officials visited the company that allegedly imported long life milk in January this year from China, but could not find any baby formula powdered milk or long life milk on the shelves or in their storage facilities.
The City of Windhoek has learnt about the tainted Chinese milk products, contaminated with the chemical melamine as reported on the Internet services and subsequent reports in the local media.
In addition, he said the city did not receive any directive on the recall of tainted milk from the Ministry of Health and Social Services or the World Health Organisation.
However, Katoma said health inspectors not only inspected the company that allegedly imported long life milk in January from China but also the China town complex in the Northern Industrial Area.
The City of Windhoek does routine bacteriological analysis on all foodstuffs at businesses on a weekly basis as part of their food safety programme
"Furthermore, ongoing inspections on businesses in all seven wards within the city continue, and any irregularities or suspected products detected will be reported, and corrective actions will be taken accordingly," he sad.
Last week, Director of Primary Heath Care in the Ministry of Health and Social Services, Maggie Nghatanga, told New Era that the ministry had sent out a team of health inspectors to investigate what was wrong with the milk in order to take appropriate action but found that the Windhoek Municipality was already doing the investigations.
New Era understands that a task team of several ministries including the Ministry of Health and Social Services has been set up to look into the matter because they need to know how this milk was brought in and what the point of entry was.
Although the ministry and the Chinese Embassy last week assured the nation there was no Chinese milk in Namibia, a local weekly publication said it had found Chinese milk produced by YiLi Industrial Group, one of the Chinese companies implicated in the contamination. This milk, said the publication was imported into Namibia and was distributed locally.
Beira Foods, a company that imported the milk into Namibia said the milk was imported into Namibia more than one-and-a-half years ago and did not understand why there was interest only now.
Ryan van der Westhuisen said Beira Foods only received one-and-a-half containers of the two tonnes of milk he had ordered after realising he could not get the supply locally.
Meanwhile, the local dairy company, Namibia Dairies has said the ongoing milk scandal in China where milk tainted with chemicals has triggered a food safety crisis in that country has illustrated the disastrous effect of lacking quality standards, independent inspections, and non-enforcement of food and safety regulations.
Hugh Froggatt, the Managing Director of Namibia Dairies, reacting to the Chinese milk crisis, said quality systems and procedures were there for an important reason namely to protect consumers' health. He said Namibia benefited from tighter regulations and a state of order in its dairy industry.
"Namibia Dairies is a seal of quality. All products bearing our name are produced according to stringent and reliable quality systems and procedures meaning they are healthy, safe and meet world class standards," maintained Froggatt in a press statement issued yesterday.
Although melamine has low oral acute toxicity, excessive exposure melamine has been found to cause urinary stones.
The consumption of melamine contaminated infant formula has caused the death of children in China, while 13000 have been hospitalised. As of Friday last week, more than 54000 children had sought medical attention in China.
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