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Palm oil truck drivers submit products for FDA testing

This follows an alert by FDA that large quantities of the product contain cancerous dye, Sudan IV.

Palm oil truck drivers submit products for testing

Several trucks loaded with palm oil on Friday dawn pulled up at the Food and Drugs Authority for testing.

Head of Food Safety Management Department at the FDA, Maria Aba Lovelace-Johnson had earlier on told Pulse.com.gh, that the Authority has began laying ambush to check trucks carrying palm oil to Accra.

The development has however affected the businesses of truck drivers and they have therefore decided to voluntarily bring their products to the FDA for testing.

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The drivers, who were conveying their goods from Kade in the Eastern region to Accra said samples of the palm oil have since been taken.

They are therefore waiting for the results which the FDA has promised will be available before the day ends.

The Food and Drugs Authority (FDA), last two weeks, confiscated large quantities of palm oil from some selected markets, after the product were said to have been adulterated with Sudan IV, an industrial dye used in the colouration of plastics and other synthetic products.

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Meanwhile, some palm oil traders in Accra have voluntarily submitted samples of their products to the Food and Drugs Authority for testing, as part of efforts to rid the market of cancerous palm oil.

Organizing Secretary of the Oil Palm Development Association of Ghana, Maxwell Commey Nii said the blame should not be put entirely on the dealers of the product.

He said several of the traders are being forced to add the industrial dye to their products due to customers' demand for a 'reddish' palm oil.

He, however, added that there will soon be a registration exercise for all palm oil dealers to ensure that only the licensed ones are allowed to operate.

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