RIYADH, 13 June — Saudi authorities have seized 11 consignments of Indian meat, weighing thousands of tons, on suspicion that they originated from countries where the foot and mouth disease was detected.
Dr. Hamad Al-Aufy, director of the Commerce Ministry’s quality control laboratory, said they had received ministerial directives against clearing the shipments for fear of spreading the disease that has already killed several herds of sheep and cows in the Kingdom.
The consignments are now held up at the Jeddah Islamic Port. The Customs Department in Dammam also held two consignments of frozen Brazilian chicken as their papers were attested by the Jordanian Embassy in Brazil instead of the Saudi Embassy.
The Agriculture and Water Ministry announced yesterday that all cattle farms in the Kingdom were now free of FMD.
“No new cases of foot and mouth have been reported during the past week,” an official statement said.
Saudi Arabia banned import of meat and cattle from many countries including the European Union, African states and some Arab and Gulf countries as part of its efforts to prevent mad cow and foot and mouth diseases.
The Commerce Ministry has told Saudi and foreign companies importing meat to the Kingdom to give a detailed route of their shipments to prevent smuggling contaminated meat into the country.
The Commerce Ministry has, meanwhile, cleared 90 out of 101 containers of Brazilian meat, which have been held up at the Jeddah Islamic Port since early last month on suspicion of FMD contamination. Before reaching Saudi Arabia, the shipments had passed through countries where outbreak of the disease was reported.
Al-Aufy said the Brazilian shipments were held up as they did not comply with Saudi standards specifications and did not give details of its route. “They were also not attached with certificates proving they were slaughtered as per Islamic rules. Some of the consignments carried two different expiry dates.”
The shipments were later cleared when traders intervened saying the shipments had to pass through various ports in view of the long distance between Brazil and the Kingdom. The traders said the shipments were attached with the necessary documents.
Raid on flour mill: Commerce Ministry officials raided on Monday a flour mill in Riyadh area that allegedly used false validity tags on flour bags. Dr. Abdul Ali Ibrahim, director of the Anti-Fraud Department at the ministry, said the mill, owned by a firm operating in the wholesale foodstuff market, was not licensed to package foodstuffs.
Some 270 bags weighing 10 kg each and 1,200 empty bags without marks and ready for filling were seized from a mill’s warehouse. It contained other food items filled into small plastic bags ready for distribution. The warehouse is sealed and the owner is being interrogated.
