ISLAMABAD, Sept 9: The World Food Programme (WFP) has cancelled food supply contracts with a number of companies following reports that “substandard and unbranded” food items are being supplied to the earthquake-hit areas of Azad Kashmir and NWFP.
Sources in the Azad Kashmir food department told Dawn that the WFP has cancelled contracts and the value of which went into millions of dollars.
They said the organisation has taken a serious notice of the complaint of supply of unbranded food items to the quake victims.
Food authorities in district Bagh had taken into their possessions unbranded cooking oil and other food items into their possession and sent them for laboratory tests two and a half months back.
The sources said the laboratory tests had confirmed that cooking oil was unbranded and not safe for human consumption.
The issue was also raised by the local press with a number of follow ups as the food items appeared to have been donated by countries where strict food safety rules are in place.
The food authorities had taken into their possessions unbranded soya cooking oil. The canes of the soya cooking oil carried the written message of “a gift from Canada”. But, it did not mention the name of the manufacturer, its principal address, ingredients or weight or the expiry date.
Even containers with labels of Pakwaan cooking oil, and marked as a donation from the Japanese government, and vegetable oil tins identifying the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) as the donor, suffered from such flaws.
The labels on boxes containing high energy biscuits did not mention the name of the brand or other necessary information.
The WFP has times and again said that strict safety measures are in place as far as the supply of food to the affected people are concerned.
A WFP spokesman said that none of the cooking oils found substandard was issued by the WFP.
He said that if some people were using the WFP name on substandard food he condemned this act.
According to the WFP, the quality of in-kind donations (commodities) sent by various countries like Saudi Arabia, which donated dates, were checked at the port in Karachi where they were issued quality certificates.
An official of the Japanese embassy’s economic division disowned the Pakwaan oil carrying the name of Japan. He said the Japanese government had only donated cash to the government of Pakistan and did not contributed any in-kind donations.
Same was the response of a USAID official. She said the USAID had nothing to do with food items and only contributed to the economic development and income generation of the earthquake- affected people.