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Behind food scandals lie dozing watchdogs
By Wang Yong |
April 20, 2011, Wednesday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
BEHIND every food scandal, there's a scandalous watchdog.
Anyone who ever bothered to visit the factory of Shanghai Shenglu Food Co would have been alarmed by the dirty environment in which buns were made.
But local food watchdogs did not seem to be alarmed until CCTV and other media outlets bared the factory for everyone to see - flies and all.
An old Chinese saying goes, "No merchant is honest." We should have no illusions about merchants - Chinese or foreign. But who can we trust if we cannot trust our government watchdogs?
Premier Wen Jiabao has time and again pointed an angry finger at immoral business people - first real estate developers and then food producers. Indeed, they are to be reviled and many should not be in business.
But many government watchdogs don't seem to be troubled or want to put them out of business. Slap-on-the-wrist fines (if that) are sufficient.
As if to illustrate this point, a food safety watchdog official in Shandong Province told Xinhua news agency in a report published on Tuesday: "Our salaries and bonuses come from fines. We cannot fine them (Ed: producers of fake food) to death, otherwise where would we collect fines next time?"
This explains, at least in part, why a smoking ban is seldom enforced in restaurants in Shanghai and elsewhere in China.
Anyone who ever bothered to visit the factory of Shanghai Shenglu Food Co would have been alarmed by the dirty environment in which buns were made.
But local food watchdogs did not seem to be alarmed until CCTV and other media outlets bared the factory for everyone to see - flies and all.
An old Chinese saying goes, "No merchant is honest." We should have no illusions about merchants - Chinese or foreign. But who can we trust if we cannot trust our government watchdogs?
Premier Wen Jiabao has time and again pointed an angry finger at immoral business people - first real estate developers and then food producers. Indeed, they are to be reviled and many should not be in business.
But many government watchdogs don't seem to be troubled or want to put them out of business. Slap-on-the-wrist fines (if that) are sufficient.
As if to illustrate this point, a food safety watchdog official in Shandong Province told Xinhua news agency in a report published on Tuesday: "Our salaries and bonuses come from fines. We cannot fine them (Ed: producers of fake food) to death, otherwise where would we collect fines next time?"
This explains, at least in part, why a smoking ban is seldom enforced in restaurants in Shanghai and elsewhere in China.
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