The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is to tighten the regulations governing compulsory restaurant insurance to ensure compliance after a restaurant allegedly responsible for a mass food poisoning in Taipei was found to have a lapsed insurance policy.
A branch of the Malaysian restaurant chain Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) at Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13, currently under investigation for a mass poisoning incident that left two dead and dozens sick, has been uninsured since October last year.
Photo: Chiu Chih-jou, Taipei Times
The Food Safety and Sanitation Act (食品安全衛生管理法) stipulates that restaurants must carry a product liability policy or face a NT$30,000 to NT$3 million (US$936 to US$93,583) fine, but local governments are ill-equipped to enforce the law as they only conduct random inspections, lawmakers said on Monday.
In response, Minister of Health and Welfare Hsueh Jui-yuan (薛瑞元) said that the FDA is to take over the enforcement of restaurant insurance regulations from local governments.
This is to be achieved in part by updating the Food And Drug Business Registry Web site to include must-fill fields for insurance information, which could be implemented as soon as next month, he said.
An automatic warning mechanism would be added to the registry Web site, notifying local governments a month before restaurants’ liability insurance expires so that local governments can promptly supervise restaurants, he added.
FDA Food Safety Division Deputy Director Cheng Wei-chih (鄭維智) yesterday said that two fields would be added to the Web site requiring business owners to submit material to prove that they have a policy and its expiration date.
Local governments would be able to access the information for regulatory purposes, Cheng said.
FDA Deputy Director-General Lin Chin-fu (林金富) yesterday said the health and welfare bureaus or departments of local governments are empowered to fine uninsured restaurants without issuing a warning.
The fine can be repeated for continued failure to comply, Lin said.
The FDA is to start informing the restaurant industry of the coming regulatory change and then roll out the Web site upgrade in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance, using motor vehicle mandatory insurance as a model, he said.
Health officials estimate that they would need one month to update the regulations, Lin said.
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