IN THE capital city of Georgetown and in all the other towns, in varying degrees, cooked food and other services (e.g. road-side barbering) which may be unhygienic or even toxic are on offer. The institutions which are entrusted by law to protect citizens from being exposed to such perils are the Food and Drugs Department, the Guyana National Bureau of Standards and the Georgetown City Council.

In the last generation, Guyanese people always preferred and used home-prepared food. Even if they had to be away from home for a day or two, as would have been the case of public servants or travelling salesmen, they always travelled with their home-prepared food. School children either went home for lunch or carried packed lunches but never bought lunches as most of them now do.

Now the culture has changed and citizens tend to have their lunches at restaurants, fast-food outlets, food-vending snackettes or road-side food sellers. The restaurants and fast-food outlets sell what Americans call “junk food” which contains a great deal of sugar and salt. The food sold in these restaurants and fast food outlets are prepared fairly hygienically; it is the “junk food” they sell which is deleterious to health. We will return to the subject of “junk food” in another article but in this article, we are focusing on the hygienic preparation of foods.

In the food-vending snackettes, we would include the small Chinese “restaurants” and together with the roadside food sellers and we will examine the conditions in which their food is prepared.
In the first place, these food sellers should all have food-handlers certificates which would ascertain that they do not suffer from any infectious diseases. Such certificates are absolutely necessary for those who vend outside of the schools.

The place of preparation of the food should be inspected periodically by officers from the responsible agencies. Many of these food-sellers prepare their food in slummy tenement yards and they do not have running water available or clean water with which to cook. Without these basic facilities, food is prepared in unhygienic conditions and would be a danger to users’ health.

Chinese “restaurants” operate mostly from rented premises which were not designed for restaurant or eating-house purposes. Water and toilet facilities are often absent from these rented lower flats of buildings and as such crockery could not be washed. This sometimes results, for example, in plates being “swished” with a piece of wet paper dipped in a water bucket kept for that purpose. But the fundamental problem regarding Chinese “restaurants” is that Eastern and Western concepts of hygiene differ in many ways and Guyana practises Western hygiene.

The owners and workers at these restaurants should be taught Western concepts of hygiene by the responsible agencies, as well as, the layout of the basic kitchen with regular water supply. And we reiterate that in these Chinese “restaurants” as in the case of the local food sellers and handlers, they should all have food-handlers certificates and be licensed to prepare and sell food commercially.

The people who buy food from the roadside food sellers and food-vending snackettes, including the small Chinese “restaurants”, run the risk of being infected with infectious diseases or with stomach ailments like gastroenteritis or even food poisoning. The three institutions which are mentioned above are entrusted with enforcing the law and ensuring that these food sellers prepare and vend their food hygienically, but they only act sporadically. For example, within the last half-year, the major report of the Food and Drugs activity was removing Asian-produced sardines where the packaging was designed to mislead buyers that they were purchasing Canadian Brunswick sardines.

And similarly, the Georgetown City Council acting under Chapter 28:01 of the Municipal and District Councils Act, in October last year temporarily closed five food businesses. When these closures were discussed by the Council, councillors pertinently questioned why more businesses in breach had not been brought before the Council and why Chinese restaurants seem to be exempted from inspection.
This situation has grown so enormous that prosecutions and closures could not be effective and, in any case, the three enforcing institutions do not have the staff or resources to take such action on the scale required.

It would seem that the first step would be to list the sellers and then carry out a compulsory programme of educating them as to the requirements for persons who prepare food for commercial purposes. The next step would be to register those who may satisfy the minimum criteria including all food-handlers having food-handlers’ certificates. And then a more comprehensive educational programme should be mounted by the three enforcing bodies, enlisting the help of the Ministries of Public Health and the Ministry of Education. After giving sellers a grace period, prosecutions and closures could then be proceeded with.

Such a programme needs proactive and tactful action by those who are responsible for enforcing the law and would involve much time and commitment, but the problem could be brought under control in three or four months. Barbados has successfully brought this problem under control and licensing of food sellers and food handlers is a norm in that island.

When food preparation, handling and selling are brought within the ambit of hygienic conditions, citizens who buy from food vendors, and particularly children who buy food from vendors outside their schools, would be safer.