World Food Programme MUST ensure substandard food is not distributed
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Back in 2009, a diarrhoea epidemic broke out in Jajarkot, the same district afflicted with a swine flu epidemic in April.
The 2009 epidemic led to 300 deaths, with officials blaming a lack of proper drinking water and sewerage and a lack of adequate health institutions.
But a controversy arose when the Informal Sector Service Centre, a human rights NGO, released a report raising concerns over the quality of rice and lentils being distributed in the affected areas by the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP).
The WFP refuted the allegations, prompting the National Human Rights Council (NHRC) to collect 31 samples of food and test them at the government’s Department of Food Technology and Quality Control (DFTQC).
The lentil samples were found to be “substandard” and “not edible”, while the rice samples were “not suitable for human consumption”.
Now, it has happened again. On May 17, locals in Nuwakot’s Sunkhani VDC and Bidur municipality complained at a meeting of the District Disaster Relief Committee that the rice distributed as relief by the WFP in the aftermath of the earthquakes was “substandard and inedible”.
Similar reports came in from Kavre and Sindhupalchok. The NHRC again sent a monitoring team, which tested samples at the DFTQC and concluded that the rice was substandard and “posed a serious health risk to the public”.
The WFP again refuted the NHRC’s assertions, claiming that their own “test results found the rice [to be] perfectly safe and edible” Nevertheless, it replaced the remaining five metric tonnes of rice.
Who exactly is at fault here might take some time to ascertain, but what is clear is that there is a clear lack of oversight in the WFP’s procurement and distribution of food.
The 2009 case in Jajarkot might have been an aberration, were it not for this instance now. Times of crisis, more than ever, demand strict adherence to standards.
If not, survivors of one disaster can easily become victims of another. The substandard rice in Kavre and Sindhupalchok could have led to a disease outbreak among already-vulnerable populations living under shelters without proper water and sewerage.
When Jamie McGoldrick, UN coordinator in Nepal, was questioned by the Post about the quality of food being distributed, his response was non-committal.
“Food is a perishable good, it gets damaged easily,” he said. “I am sure there will be small problems when you deliver huge amounts of rice.”
This reply seems complacent and inadequate. We expect that the WFP will introspect and conclude just what it needs to correct to make dead certain that this doesn’t happen again.
Still, the shortcomings do not just rest with the WFP; the government must share some of the blame.
When so much relief aid is coming in to the country, concerned authorities must remain vigilant, monitoring the quality of everything that comes in.
Towards this end, Tuesday’s disposal of 7,000 litres of vegetable oil sent in by the United Arab Emirates is a positive. The DFTQC had concluded that the oil was inedible.
