Last week was opened in Casablanca exhibition of Halal products. One of the chapters covered by the event, which is on the program, was entitled: “upgrading / certification, two distinct missions”. This article tries to see if there are objective reasons for making these spots independent of each other, and if this was not the case, why on earth do we insist so much to separate operations which support each other because intertwined.
Preamble
At the end of the seventies of last century, when I was working as an assistant at the Institute of Experimental Pharmacology, Lausanne, I received a phone call from the cardiologist Professor Ben Omar, whom I had never met before, of the Faculty of Medicine, Rabat, interested then, in particular, to set up a laboratory for assaying hormones renin angiotensin system in the Avicenna Hospital (system on which I worked in those days). When looking up in the “current contents” of the time to get an idea on the work of Mr. Ben Omar, I stumbled on an “open letter”, in an edition of the Journal of Physiology (in French), of a CNRS researcher at his French colleagues. He reproached them to publish their articles in the Anglo-Saxon journals and lamented that the above-mentioned newspaper became essentially a platform for African scholars! Professor Ben Omar had just published in the journal precisely, with seven members of his team, a section of their research. I have learned two lessons from the reading of the letter in question: First that the French scientists are well aware that to be taken seriously, their articles must be published in Anglo-Saxons journals. Then, for reasons of prestige associated with the “Francophonie”, the French official attitude should continue to promote, especially in Africa, the global importance of Francophone scientific publications.
Exegesis
Scientific journals serve, among others, to communicate the results of research between people of the same profession and beyond. If the same observations are made independent ways by different researchers, this lead to the validation of the results reported, which raises these findings to the status of recognized references. It is these results first appeared in scientific journals, which are then used as the basis for writing such ISO norms and other standards. Due to the fact that most scientific journals that count are originally published in English, it follows that standard based on it are too. However, standards, built on such a rigorous approach, remain a minority next to the immeasurable number of all kinds of protocols and working recommendations coming out of nowhere, which have the appearance of rigor and whose reasons for promotion are often purely commercial. Our view is that the distinction as part of enterprises upgrading, between what comes to coaching, under a different responsibility from that belonging to certification, aims in distorting good manufacturing practices for purely commercial purposes.
Reminder of the certification process
Certification for the food industry refers to the confirmation of characteristics, specified in a given reference, in the conduct of a job or defining a particular product. This approach implies that a recognized authority for its area of intervention will, in one way or another, test the skills or performance of an entity or its products to confirm specifications to the reference in question. The certification authority has discretion in choosing the appropriate protocol allowing it to establish the ability of the entity considered to deserve the honor of the required certification. The responsibility of the certifier is full throughout the certification process from initiation to completion, namely the issue of the document expected. It’s that time of preparing an application for certification, which is usually intended by the term accompaniment.
Certification or accompaniment: the Distinction
In the past, I worked with a large American firm for audit and certification for several years. Like other similar Offices, these professionals ensure the support of the applicant company for the accompanying period until the achievement of the certification process and take responsibility for their actions on all segments that articulate this work. This is apparently not the case for some European certifiers, usually French, who work in the Moroccan agribusiness. In this regard, during the last exhibition for Halal products held in Casablanca, the morning of September 26 was just devoted to theme: “upgrading / certification, two distinct missions”. Actually, I’ve heard this kind of distinction several times during my visits to work with food processing operators across Morocco. The upgrading assistants, usually local professionals, are sometimes selected on purely administrative criteria, see esoteric, for the job accompanying on certain duration, set according to the same random fashion, after which an European certifier, as mentioned above, is called on to terminate the ongoing operation by signing the certifying document. Some will wonder: why this distinction between upgrading and certification operations? I personally see both. The first, easily verifiable, is that the remuneration, expressed as the sum received to the worked days, is quite ridiculous for what perceives the upgrading assistants compared to what is given to the European certifier. In terms of expertise in the Moroccan agri food business, this type of subterfuge, in our opinion, has been widely used in MEDA financial assistance programs, where the money was primarily used to pay the European experts while results of their interventions were far from pertinent. The second reason is more subtle. Indeed, the obsessive fear of an expert is of being accused as incompetent by handing on, for example, of a certificate of convenience. With this system where European experts named above have created a screen, namely their “dependence” on the opinion of local upgrading assistants that have been put out of their direct responsibility, where they can take refuge at leisure to justify any failure of their certifying processes, they actually can raise money galore and keep their reputation in all circumstances untouchable. So, as they say, “your cake and eat it too.”
Comment and Conclusion
What is surprising in all this is the silence of ONSSA, the national organization of supervision over the food industry including work expertise. When there is an abnormality that affects the American food industry, for example, whose consequences could be felt negatively by the industrials, the FDA doesn’t hesitate in intervening to warn of the irregularity and correct the perception among operators. These irregularities are numerous in the Moroccan agri food business (see other articles in this blog) but ONSSA seems too lethargic to deal with it all. That said, we know from our activity related to national agri-food sector, the officials of ONSSA make visits once a month, at least, to the sites of national operators. Among the operators, there are those who keep the names of the officers received, their cell phone numbers and other confidential memos. Industrialists, who fear these officers rather than respecting them, confirm that these delegates ONSSA come to see them for quick visits of courtesy but they do lack time to tell them about the new regulations and other information related with their industrial concerns. We remain unsatisfied when we ask why these people come anyway. But officials ONSSA must know the reason why.
