Proposal to increase penalties for food safety violations

Recently, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Public Security met to discuss increasing penalties for food safety violations. According to a representative of the Department of Food Safety - Ministry of Health, the two ministries plan to continue to coordinate more closely in the coming time, including increasing penalties for food safety violations and amending legal documents.

Fighting dirty food requires the community's strong participation.

Notably, the draft Penal Code (amended) stipulates: "Anyone who produces or trades in counterfeit food, foodstuffs, or food additives that causes property damage from 200 million to less than 1 billion VND (current regulation is from 100 million to 500 million VND) shall be sentenced to imprisonment from 5 to 10 years (Clause 2, Article 193).

Clause 5, Article 193 of the Draft stipulates that "Offenders may also be fined from 40 million to 200 million VND. The proposed fine applied to commercial legal entities committing crimes also increases from a minimum of 1 billion to 2 billion VND and the maximum fine increases from 18 billion to 36 billion VND.

Proposal to amend Article 317 of the Penal Code, notably increasing the fine to 3 billion VND, and raising the minimum prison term from 1 year to 3 years.

Minister of Health Dao Hong Lan said that for serious acts such as producing and trading fake food, the penalty in the Penal Code can be up to 20 years in prison or life imprisonment.

According to Mr. Nguyen Van Nhien - food safety expert, increasing the penalty level is one of the important factors to ensure food safety.

“The awareness and sense of compliance with the law on food safety of the people and forces today compared to before has been greatly improved. However, there are still many subjects who prioritize profits, regardless of the lives and health of consumers, still deliberately violate the provisions of the law on food safety to deceive the authorities or deliberately violate, combine with each other to form organized groups, chains from the stage of organizing production to trading some unsafe food products. Therefore, the fight against violations is a regular and continuous work of relevant functional sectors and local authorities,” Mr. Nhien affirmed.

To increase deterrence against acts that cause food insecurity, in addition to the provisions in the law, according to Mr. Nguyen Van Nhien, implementation in practice needs to be carried out seriously.

“In addition to issuing legal documents, it is necessary to promote propaganda and guidance on legal regulations to all groups of people in society, synchronizing all relevant sectors and functions. The participation of food safety management forces of the health, agriculture , police, market management sectors... And I still emphasize the role of local authorities at all levels in raising awareness and consciousness of import and export producers and traders,” Mr. Nhien shared.

According to the record, many people expressed their agreement with the proposal to increase the penalty level. For example, Ms. Nguyen Thi Lan, a 56-year-old housewife living in Hai Duong, always has to worry about choosing food because every time she goes to the market, she cannot know which food is clean and safe, and when she buys it for use, if her health has any problems, she does not know who to complain to. Therefore, Ms. Lan believes that the proposal to increase the penalty level for food safety violations is necessary.

"Of course, now that interests are closely linked, if we just knock on the economy and fine people, food businesses and producers will be more aware of the need to ensure food hygiene and safety," said Ms. Lan.

Not stopping at increasing administrative fines, people also want legal regulations to be more strict for cases that seriously affect public health, as shared by Mr. Nguyen Hong Quan - an office worker in Cau Giay district, Hanoi: "In addition to economic issues, we will have to strongly punish with imprisonment because this behavior does not only directly affect one person but many people. In addition to criminal handling, there needs to be a mechanism to request appropriate compensation for those directly affected by dirty food."

Faced with the proposed high fine, Mr. Vu Trung Nguyen, 27 years old, owner of a chicken rice restaurant in Hanoi, also expressed his concern that small and medium-sized businesses like him might unintentionally violate the new regulations on food safety without having time to update them. Therefore, Mr. Nguyen hopes that the authorities or local governments can support businesses with information such as propaganda, dissemination, and timely guidance on legal regulations.

According to vov.vn

Source: https://baolaocai.vn/de-xuat-tang-muc-xu-phat-vi-pham-an-toan-thuc-pham-post400637.html