Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Director-General Yeh Ming-kung (葉明功) yesterday said that unscrupulous businesspeople who market substandard products “must be jailed,” adding that this would be the agency’s stance during its meetings with the Ministry of Justice to amend the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation (食品安全衛生管理法).
He said the proposed amendment of the act would seek to prevent judges from issuing rulings that would give offenders light punishments, allowing them to get away lightly with their crimes.
Not only should the offenders’ illegal profits be confiscated, they should face a prison term that cannot be commuted to a fine, he said, adding that only by doing so will the public be appeased.
Photo: Lin Cheng-kung, Taipei Times
The agency would also propose to the Ministry of Justice to deliberate on abolishing the existing law that prevents offenders from being subjected to repeated punishments, he said.
Meanwhile, the agency yesterday said that municipal health agencies dispatched a total of 441 personnel to inspect 1,275 night markets, food stands and restaurants, and they did not find any vendor who still uses the 25 allegedly tainted lard products manufactured by Chang Guann Co or products suspected to have been processed with the substandard oils.
The agency on Monday announced that vendors who still have suspect products made from the tainted lard oil on their shelves risk being fined between NT$60,000 and NT$50 million (US$1,990 and US$1.66 million).
FDA Deputy Director-General Chiang Yu-mei (姜郁美) said that an estimated NT$80.72 million in penalties would be imposed on violators by municipal health agencies, including the NT$50 million fine already issued to Chang Guann on Sept. 9 by the Kaohsiung City Department of Health; and a NT$3 million fine that the Taipei City Department of Health ordered for both baking ingredients company For Chorn Co and trading company GASSHO.
The agency’s Northern Center section head Wu Ming-mei (吳明美) said Chang Guann was given the maximum fine in accordance with Article 44 of the food safety act, which states that businesses that sell contaminated or corroded products may be fined between NT$60,000 and NT$50 million.
The Taipei City Government has announced that it would fine For Chorn and GASSHO the maximum amount stipulated by Article 47 of the act, which orders that eluding or obstructing inspections can be punsihed with a fine between NT$30,000 and NT$3 million, Wu said, but the city government has not forwarded papers to the Food and Drug Administration documenting that the fines had been imposed.
Another vendor to face a hefty fine is Liu Ma Ma, a vegetarian baozi store based in Taoyuan County, she said.
“Although the shop complied with inspection personnel, it claimed on national television that its products had not been processed with the tainted lard and even threatened to sue the Taoyuan County Public Health Bureau,” she said.
“This is an act of deceptive advertising, which is punishable by Article 28 of the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation,” Wu said, adding that the county government has said that it is considering giving the store a NT$3 million fine.
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