The Ministry of Health and Welfare yesterday dismissed Namchow Chemical Industrial Co’s (南僑化學工業) excuse of “paperwork mistakes” for incorrectly listing its imported edible cattle tallow as for industrial use in customs clearance permits, saying that the products were categorized as such in all relevant documents.
“On the commercial invoices for the five batches of questionable cattle tallow that Namchow Chemical imported from Australia, they clearly stated that the goods were ‘for industrial use.’ The same categorization was also seen in the Certificate of Australian Origin and the applications for customs clearance for the products,” Ministry of Health and Welfare Vice Minister Hsu Ming-neng (許銘能) told a press conference on the sidelines of a legislative meeting.
Hsu said these documents suggested that Namchow Chemical had purposely sought to dodge random cargo inspections at the border that would otherwise have been required if the products were classified as for human use upon import.
He also shrugged off the possibility that the oils were unintentionally misclassified as for industrial use by some “careless” employees at Namchow Chemical, as Namchow Group (南僑集團) chairman Alfred Chen (陳飛龍) has claimed.
“[Chen blaming the problem on clerical errors] is hard to swallow,” Hsu added.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Wednesday accused Namchow Chemical of importing industrial cooking oil for use at its food manufacturing factory. The consignments included five batches of beef tallow from Australia, as well as 22 batches of coconut oil and three batches of palm kernel oil from the Philippines.
To safeguard the reputation of the 62-year-old firm, Namchow Chemical hurriedly submitted a certificate issued by the Australian Office Taipei and 25 certificates issued by the Philippine Department of Agriculture stating that all the oils were “fit for human consumption after being refined” to the administration.
At a press conference held hours later, Chen repeatedly claimed that the oils were safe for cooking and eating, and that they had only been mistakenly listed as for industrial use in the applications for customs clearance.
Chen’s remarks were rebuffed by FDA Interim Director-General Chiang Yu-mei (姜郁美), who said that even if the certificates were proven authentic, it was still reprehensible and against the law for a listed large-scale company to attempt to dodge cargo examinations at the border.
Earlier yesterday, Chiang maintained her tough stance on the issue and announced that the administration was to sample all of Namchow Chemical’s cooking oils for laboratory tests.
“The administration harbors doubts about the internal management of a company that had sought to avoid border inspections of its oil imports, prompting us to decide to test all its imported raw materials for the presence of heavy metals, antioxidants or aflatoxin,” Chiang said.
Chiang reiterated that attempts to avoid inspections at the border violated the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation (食品安全衛生管理法) and would absolutely not be tolerated.
Separately yesterday, the Taoyuan County Government’s Public Health Bureau said it would allow Namchow Chemical’s 33 cooking oil products made from beef tallow back on the shelves, after the administration had assessed that they were safe for human consumption.
The bureau ordered a preventive recall of 123 cooking oil products on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday that it would start inspecting all the declarations of imported non-edible fats over the past five years, item by item, in the wake of Namchow’s involvement in the false declaration scandal.
“To deal with recent food safety issues related to Ting Hsin International Group [頂新集團] and Namchow Chemical, we will do all we can to help related government agencies classify oil products imported by these companies and offer related declaration documents for further investigation,” the ministry’s Customs Administration said in a statement.
The administration said it would also conduct more examinations of high-risk imported fats, while verifying the declaration documents of imported fats and other food-related products more thoroughly.
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