The Executive Yuan today called on county and city governments to speedily set up food safety boards, reiterating that this would help integrate central and local government forces to jointly crack down on illegal food products, raise domestic food safety and safeguard public health.
Executive Yuan Spokesperson Sun Lih-chyun stated that defending food safety is a major task of the government. This is why the Executive Yuan has set up its Board of Food and Medicine Safety and a food safety inspection and crackdown taskforce under the board.
The Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation stipulates that special municipality as well as county and city governments must also set up their food safety boards, Sun stated. The Executive Yuan affirmed the Taipei City Government for having already done so in line with the law.
In keeping with the amended Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation promulgated on December 10, 2014, the Executive Yuan formulated the establishment rules for its own food safety board on February 13, 2015 and subsequently set up the board. The Board of Food and Medicine Safety will meet every three months and is expected to convene its first meeting by the end of this month.
Premier Mao Chi-kuo and Vice Premier Chang San-cheng serve as the board's convener and deputy convener, respectively. Currently the Executive Yuan is recruiting the rest of the board's 22 to 28 members, which will include a chief executive officer (CEO), a deputy CEO, and organization representatives. Five members will be academics or experts, and nine will come from the private sector and consumer groups. Based on the nature of the issues, relevant local government officials, academics, experts, and representatives from private sector groups will be invited to board meetings in the future.
In order to effectively handle major food incidents, the board's rules especially state that if necessary, the Ministry of Health and Welfare and local governments that initiate response mechanisms may propose contingency measures based on the severity of the event, Sun reiterated. Upon approval by the Executive Yuan, a central food-safety crisis-management response center will be set up and the center's commander appointed by the premier. Such a mechanism would be conducive to swiftly snuffing out major food crises, safeguarding public health and consumer rights, helping food industries to speedily recover and thus minimizing damage to society and the nation.