AGRICULTURE Minister Dr. Leslie Ramsammy has responded to complaints from the National Milling Company of Guyana Limited (NAMILCO) concerning a ‘white substance’ being packaged in a rice bag and sold on the local market as flour.

The minister has said that although there is still no real evidence to substantiate NAMILCO’s complaint, the Agriculture Ministry is nevertheless conducting investigations. However, at this stage of developments, he could only confirm that the ministry has indeed received complaints of products that may be partially or wholly comprised of rice flour or other types of flour being labelled and sold as wheaten flour.
“We have heard complaints about another fraud in packaging, where flour product — what’s labelled as wheat flour — is actually rice flour. We have no real evidence (to substantiate this claim), and we’ve been checking with the Food and Drug Analyst Department, who I gather have been visiting NAMILCO and others, and also the supermarkets, etc. to see if we actually find such products,” he advised.
He added that these checks are actually a routine activity done by the FDA, but whether they authenticate the product or not is another matter.
He iterated that the FDA does visit production sites, supermarkets and shops on a regular basis, but noted from his experience as a former Minister of Health that the FDA has limited human resources.
“There is limited staff…for them to be able to go to every supermarket, and every shop. That’s why regulation is an activity that must be done together by the consumers and the regulators,” Dr. Ramsammy stated.
He related that once a complaint is received, the process becomes easier, because the relevant authorities will know specifically what to look for.
“When there’s no complaint, you visit the supermarkets and so without looking for a specific thing. But when you have (a complaint), it becomes easy; so you go and take things off the supermarket shelves. You could go to production site, you can go to ports where things are coming in and check them more specifically and in a focused way; and that’s what they’re doing now,” he stated.
NAMILCO issued a statement during last week, urging consumers to be wary of a white substance packaged in a 4.5 kg bag marked ‘product of Guyana’ and being sold as flour. The company has indicated that it has not authorised anyone to repackage its products, and has assured that the product in question has definitely not been produced by NAMILCO.