Slovak News Back to the news
Most-Hid Disillusioned at Fico's Idea of Protecting Consumers
Tuesday 02 March 2010 Zoom in | Print page
Bratislava, March 2 (TASR) - The non-parliamentary Most-Hid party is disenchanted at the Government's hasty endeavours to protect consumers when it comes to food safety and quality, the party's spokesperson Nora Czuczorova told TASR on Tuesday.
She was speaking following an inspection that Prime Minister Robert Fico conducted at the Agriculture Ministry earlier in the day.
Fico at that time announced that the Government will radically increase the penalties for the sale of tainted food, with Agriculture Minister Vladimir Chovan (LS-HZDS) submitting a bill to this effect to the Cabinet session on Wednesday.
Following approval by the Government, the bill should be discussed in Parliament via a fast-track procedure, added Fico. "I feel that we should increase the sanctions by at least 100 percent," he said.
All the discovered and published shortcomings in retail chains that have been presented lately are not new," reads a Most-Hid statement. "Such findings were revealed for the first time back in 2005 and 2006, that is, prior to Robert Fico's Government," said Czuczurova.
Czuczurova noted that the current Cabinet adopted a piece of legislation in 2007 whereby fines for shortcomings in food safety can reach €333,000 and, in the event of repeated infringements, as much as €1.66 million. "Despite such legislation, the supervising authorities didn't impose a single fine exceeding €33,000 between 2007-09," reads the statement.
"That's why we view the premier's hasty effort to double the penalties as a marketing move and not one aimed at consumer protection," added Czuczurova.
All rights reserved. Any publishing or further dissemination of press releases and photographs from TASR's resources without TASR's prior written approval constitutes a violation of the Copyrights Act.
