KR1M items: Health Ministry admits mistake

FreeMalaysiaToday: PUTRAJAYA: The Health Ministry has concurred with Pakatan Rakyat that contents of seven food items sold in Kedai Rakyat 1 Malaysia (KR1M) did not comply with the law.
The seven items are fruit jam, evaporated milk, condensed creamer, ice-cream, sardine tins, curry chicken sardines and growing-up milk.
DAP MP Tony Pua said the ministry had also admitted to relying on the respective factories’ internal audit instead of instituting laboratory tests as bench marks.
“They (ministry officials) said the sweetened creamer did reach its 10% minimum amount of fat content.
“As for the growing-up milk, there is no definition for follow-on milk and the ministry is in the midst of coming up with laws on that.
“I hope that Health Minister (Liow Tiong Lai) will work and ensure compliance. I do not want to test all the products,” said Pua.
Both Pua and colleague Nurul Izzah Anwar from PKR had a 90-minute closed-door meeting with Health Ministry officials including its director-general Hassan Abdul Rahman and food safety officers this morning.
Last month, Pua, Nurul Izzah and PAS’ Dzulkefly Ahmad held a demonstration in front of KR1M outlet in Bandar Tun Razak.
The trio had highlighted the inferior quality of the food products in the outlet and the failure of the products to meet minimum requirement as stipulated by law.
Pua had also pointed out the confusion over growing-up milk and follow-on milk because it was targeted at the same group when the latter was actually for children ages of one to three.
Neither Hassan nor the Health Ministry has issued a statement on today’s meeting.