BY LAIDE AKINBOADE

ABUJA—To safeguard the health of Abuja residents, the Federal Capital Territory Administration, FCTA, has set out modalities to regulate food vendors and operators of eateries.

Minister of State for the FCT, Olajumoke Akinjide, stated this when a delegate from the Environmental Health Officers Registration Council ofn Nigeria, EHORECON, paid her a visit.

She said those providing food for the public should be subjected to medical screening to certify them fit for consumption by the public.

Akinjide, while responding to observations by the Registrar of EHORECON on the absence of regulation and licensing of eateries and beer parlour, said  “this is something we will try to pilot; we will screen them to ensure they are fit.”

She explained further: “They will be subjected to medical test such as HIV test, Hepatitis, etc and if found wanting, would not be allowed to operate.

“We need to form a working group to look at the markets,  sanitation, then we can work on consistent basis because these are issues that need to be institutionalize for us to implement the framework”.

She noted that the collapse of health was not the concentration of people but “because we have abandoned the things we used to do in the past, so we need to bring back that culture and I think we in the FCT are ready to give you the support.”

The Registrar of EHORECON, Mr. Augustine Ebisike, noted that the emphasis today was on curative health, rather than preventive health.

He also lamented the relegation of sanitary health officers, pointing out that presently, there is no single sanitary inspector in the Department of Development Control.

This was as he pointed out the unregulated and unlicensed nature of eateries and beer parlour operating in the FCT, stressing “it is time that we structure our environmental health issues”.