Han Ximin

    CITY advisers raised questions over food safety following a spate of scandals such as tainted Mengniu milk and swill oil at a theme discussion of the third session of the Fifth Shenzhen Municipal Committee of CPPCC yesterday.

    The government was called on to strengthen food monitoring during the production, circulation and distribution stages.

    Yang Qin, an adviser, criticized the government for having multiple agencies to manage food safety, which in reality were in active, inefficient and lacked supervision.

    Wang Mingfan, another adviser, called the market supervision authority to tighten monitoring at restaurants, hotels, eateries to locate swill oil, which media claim has been used at restaurants after illegal processing and reproduction.

    “Food safety should be on top of the government’s agenda as it concerns public health, otherwise we eat swill oil and leftovers every day,” Wang suggested.

    Though there isn’t a standard to test swill oil, Gao Zimin, another adviser, said Shenzhen should follow the practice of other countries to purchase the swill oil which could be processed into bio-fuel to save energy.

    “Shenzhen should make a law on swill oil management. In this way, the law enforcement department could act according to law,” Gao suggested.

    The government should encourage investment in swill oil recycling and offer subsidies to business operators, which can process the swill oil into bio-fuel and use it in diesel oil.