KARACHI, Sept 19: Sindh Health Minister Dr Sagheer Ahmed has ordered a fresh sampling of 1,000-metric-ton palm oil, a portion of which was believed to have become contaminated during its initial storage at the port.

The oil was imported by a ghee manufacturer about 10 years back.

Addressing a press conference on Friday, the minister said he knew that the sampling, testing and analysis of the oil had been carried out through quarters of integrity during the last 50 days.

However, he explained that a fresh sampling of the disputed oil had been ordered in the presence of representatives of the customs appellate tribunal, customs collectorate, the health department and the media to eliminate the chances of any maneuvering. The results would also show whether the oil imported years back for marketing was still fit for human consumption or not, he added.

Dr Ahmed said the consignment was not cleared by the customs department concerned in 1999, following which the importer moved the customs appellate tribunal and then also had to await the decisions from the Sindh High Court and the Supreme Court for years. Both the superior courts upheld the customs tribunal’s decision that the whole process of oil refining must be supervised by officers of the health department and if the products from the imported oil were found fit for human consumption the consignment be released to the party concerned.

The minister said that the supervision of sampling and processing was initially handed over to the city government’s health department, which at some later stage declined to carry out the test and analysis of the consignment on the ground that it had no relevant technical expertise.

A committee was later constituted by the Sindh health department to ensure compliance of the court directives, but a couple of members, including the chairman of the food science department of the University of Karachi and the district officer of the city government’s quality control department, declined to be part of the process due to their preoccupation and lack of a technical capacity, Dr Ahmed said.

The process was finally conducted through the participation of two officials of the chemico-bacteriological laboratory of the Sindh health department and a positive fitness report regarding the imported oil was received in the first week of September, he added.

However, on the request of a chemical research institute and in the larger public interest he decided to get fresh sampling of the original consignment and processing of oil, also to be analysed by the HEJ Research Institute of Chemistry, the University of Karachi; the Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research; the city government food laboratory; and the Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority so that the relevant court orders could be executed in a fool-proof manner. “To ascertain that the previous exercise of sampling was valid, we have decided to allow these laboratories to collect the samples of the disputed oil at their own,” he added.

In reply to a question, he said the whole consignment was still protected and ruled out a possibility that any hazardous or unfit oil had been consumed by the general public.