Staff Reporter :
The restaurant owners have threatened to shut down their restaurant, if illogical harassment by field government officials is not stopped.
They also said that non-cooperation mentality of the various government agencies is the main barrier for implementing safe food programme in the country.
The unwanted and scattered interferences by each department on restaurant owners are hampering normal activities of the sector, they said.
“The frequent drives by the government agencies are exploiting the hotel business, the worst victim of the Covid-19 pandemic,” said Imran Hasan, Secretary General of the Bangladesh Restaurant Owners’ Association (BROA), while speaking in a press briefing at Dhaka Reporters’ Unity (DRU) in the capital on Thursday.
He said, “Despite many directions from the High Court, the mobile court is running indiscriminately. We are not against the mobile court. Let things be seen humanely and our representatives should be kept in the drives.”
He further said they had repeatedly requested the Safe Food Authority to bring the employees under training as 95 percent of them are unskilled and poor educated.
“We repeatedly requested for formulating a well accepted “Standard Operating Procedures (SOP)” as a guideline by holding intra-ministries meetings for implementing the government’s move for ‘Safe Food’programme. But to date, no agency has given us any SOP,” Imran said.
“In addition, the mayors of two city corporations of Dhaka Cities have taken the initiative to monitor us by their teams. Safe Food Authority and ICDDR,B have been included as team members, but despite being the main stakeholder, the Restaurant Owners Association has not been made team members,” he said.
“In this way, it will never be possible to implement the government’s goal of safe food,” he observed.
Under this circumstance, he urged the Prime Minister to intervene to resolve the crisis.
Urging the restaurant owners to be more vigilant and careful about safe food during the upcoming Ramadan, he also said, “Business ethics can never be lost in order to make more profit. All other foods including iftar should be served in a hygienic manner in compliance with government health rules. Food should be displayed in a healthy way.”
“At the same time, we urged all government agencies to think humanely. Don’t put us in danger by throwing us into various laws with your intelligent game,” he said.
Though the hotel industry was the worst victim of the Covid-19 pandemic, we have not received any incentive or help from the government, he said.
“Instead of any incentive, we want long term loans at low interest rates from the SME sector so that we can sustain,” he said.
Currently, some 12 government agencies are now monitoring the restaurant sector, but the restaurant owners want to work under a government agency.
