It is a paradox that food safety and hygiene inspectors do not have the authority to take action when they discover contaminated foods.
Inspectors from city and provincial bureaus of food safety and hygiene can only inspect and test food products but have no power to fine sellers or people making them.
The reason is that the departments were only set up in 2009 while the Inspection Law took effect in 2004 and the Ordinance on Punishing Administrative Violations in 2002.
So neither names the inspectors as the officials authorized to penalize violators. When they discover contaminated foods, they have to report to the local department of health and recommend penalties.
If the department trusts the particular inspectors, it will approve the penalty and things will move quickly. Otherwise, the department will carry out its own inspection, which is usually what happens.
This process is a drain on public money and inspectors' time and labor. Food safety and hygiene violations are always hard to pin on offenders because they sell the contaminated products to unsuspecting buyers while waiting for the food inspectors to return with health inspectors. Only the latter have the right to seize dodgy food.
Even if the offense is established and the producer or distributor is brought to book, the punishment is not harsh enough to deter them from going down that path again. The average penalty imposed in the last five years has been just VND540,000 (US$29).
"One important reason for the rise in the incidence of violations is that we do not have strong punishments yet," Nguyen Dang Vang, vice chairman of the National Assembly's Science, Technology and Environment Committee, told an interviewer last month.
Besides, our laws on penalizing dodgy foods are inconsistent.
The incidence of violations has begun to rise since Tet (the lunar New Year) is approaching in a month's time and food producers are scrambling to meet the expected surge in demand.
The loopholes in our legal system protect the culprits.
By Dieu Hien
