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Brunei Orders China Milk Off Shelves
By Azaraimy HH

Bandar Seri Begawan - Brunei Darussalam has ordered all China-made milk products and dairy items off the shelves in an immediate recall and has also imposed a suspension on all of it.

The Quality Control & Food Safety Division, Environmental Health Services, Department of Health Services, will be running checks on retail shops and stores to ensure those products are not sold in the Sultanate.

The press release also said that all involved importers have been ordered to recall the said products immediately.

In light of this, the Ministry of Health has asked, as a precautionary step, for all retailers and traders to return all the involved products that are still in their stock to the Quality Control & Food Safety Division.

Further to the recall and suspension, Brunei has also taken steps to ban importers bringing in dairy milk products from China.

The Ministry of Health also stated that under Chapter 9 cap (1) sub paragraph (i) of the Public Health Act (Food) (Section 182), whoever prepares, sells or imports food that are hazardous to health can be imprisoned for five years, fined or both.

The Quality Control & Food Safety Division can be reached at its hotline 2331300/5/6/8/9/10 for further enquiry.

According to reports by Associated Press correspondents in Beijing, China's food safety crisis has widened after the industrial chemical melamine was found in milk produced by three of the country's leading dairy companies - prompting stores, including Starbucks, to yank milk from their shelves.

China's national product safety agency said that all batches of milk that tested positive were being recalled, and by Saturday the dairy sections of many grocery stores were empty in Beijing and Shanghai.

The recalls come as evidence is mounting that adding chemicals to watered-down milk was a widespread practice in China's dairy industry.

The chief financial officer of one of the companies, Mengniu, apologized Friday for the tainted milk. But he insisted only a small portion of the company's inventory had been contaminated and said the tainted milk came from small-scale dairy farmers.

The apparently widespread contamination has rapidly become a political headache for a communist government that hoped to be basking in popular adulation over last month's successful Beijing Olympics. Instead, the government is being forced to scramble to regain public confidence.

President Hu Jintao, in an address to senior Communist Party members, excoriated local officials for risking the public trust.

"Some officials have ignored public opinion and turned a blind eye to people's hardships, even on major problems that affect people's lives and safety," Hu said Friday in a largely dry policy speech published Saturday in state newspapers, AP reports said.    -- Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin

Related News: Ban On China Milk Products

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