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Sidi Mohamed
To make food safety monitoring mechanisms immaculate in Ramadan, the municipalities food inspectors will not be given vacations during the holy month.
"To tighten the monitoring of food outlets, food inspectors at the Doha and Al Rayyan municipalities will not be given vacations during Ramadan except in very emergency cases," said an official of Doha Municipality. At least two big municipalities of the country have confirmed this to The Peninsula.
The official of the Doha Municipality said that in the morning time, the inspectors' focus would remain on hypermarkets while before and after Iftar, they would pay surprise inspection visits to restaurants to ensure the quality of food being served at eateries particularly fried items.
"Also there is close coordination of municipalities with charity organisations which will serve Iftar meals. We will monitor the food before its departure from the restaurants, during its transportation and after its arrival at the Iftar tents and we are giving them directions how to keep the meals meeting the specifications," the official added.
He said that as many as 315 complaints had been registered by people against various food outlets since the beginning of 2017.
“Since the beginning of this year, health monitoring section of Doha Municipality has received more than 315 complaints from people about different violations most of them were about restaurants”, the official added.
He said that out of total complaints lodged, around 20 to 25 percent were correct "and sometimes we discovered new violations during raids and not the ones about which the people had lodged complaints".
Consumers can lodge complaints
"Also I can say that some complaints unnecessary but we welcome all complaints even minor notices from public,” the official added.
He said that there existed special sections working 24/7 to receive people complaints at all municipalities. He also said that from the beginning of 2017, the lowest number of closure was observed in February in which "only three food outlets were closed" on being found violating the Law Number 8 of 1990 which regulates human food control.
On how people could complain in case of finding any food violation, the official said that all municipalities were welcoming people's complaints and there were many ways to lodge complaints like calling the hotline, or registering them though the Baladia app, visiting the municipalities' headquarters directly or through the ministry's official Facebook, Twitter accounts.
© The Peninsula 2017
