Student calls on the Government to establish Food Quality Control laboratory

A PNG Master’s student studying Food Technology abroad has called on the PNG Government to be more affluent and well versed with its inspection of food quality control in importing and exporting.

Ms. Esther Paiela studying food technology (engineering) at Sardar Patel University in India has said PNG does not have a national food quality control laboratory that can test to standard foods to import and export. 

“PNG is rich with natural food products. We can make new food products out of them and we can export them overseas. Its one main source of boosting our country's falling economy and a better way of creating a lot of job opportunities,” she said. It's better for the government to sit back and emphasize on such tangible development strategies to bring to fruition the vision 2050.

“The government should decide now to build a National Food Quality Control laboratory, a lot of food engineering students are stuck in those food manufacturing companies. Make use of them and they can help achieve the country's productivity goals in terms of food products,” Ms Paiela said. 

“From a simple food engineer's view point, I would like to propose to the Government of the day if PNG can establish a National Food Quality Control Laboratory to work along with other existing statutory bodies to conduct quality check of imports and exports,” he said. 

She said latest speculations about Fiji's restrictions on PNG made goods especially food products is simply because PNG does not have a proper quality control by the Government. Most of the manufacturing companies operating in PNG are profit-oriented and they can at times cheat. They only do tests on very good products and keep records for later as evidences for auditing purposes.

“Countries like Fiji and other Western countries are very strict with food rules and laws. If our food products fail to meet the ISO standards, soon our food products will be rejected and we will become an unproductive country. These countries have very strict quarantine system to stringently screen goods and food products. If they find bacterial or physical or chemical contamination while doing quality analysis in their own country, they will put an end from buying PNG made food products,” she added.

Esther hails from Aipus village in Enga Province and she went to study in Anand Gujarat, India on an Indian Council of Cultural Relations Scholarship (ICCR).  

Photos: Esther Paiela