End of this month of November took place from 22 to 26 the first edition of the JIED (International Study Days of Dakhla) under the theme: “Food Safety in the Service of South-South Cooperation”. European and American guests, along with their Maghreb colleagues, took part in this event, which was well attended by many African experts representing their different countries including Mauritania, Senegal, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Benin, and Niger and so on. These days were concluded by the Dakhla Declaration, which warmly thanks the Moroccan organizers and welcomes the leadership role of the Kingdom of Morocco in developing South-South cooperation which benefits first and foremost the peoples of the African continent. The recommendations also call for continued efforts to develop African-African expertise based on the standards of reference organizations, including the Codex Alimentarius, which regulate international trade for the sector. African experts also ask their association AEFS (African Experts of Food Safety) to pool its efforts with ASDI (Saharan Association for Sustainable Development and the Promotion of Investment) and initiate the necessary steps towards a reciprocal recognition of African expertise with other continents in the same way as was established in Europe on the basis of the “Principe du cassis de Dijon“.
The demonstration would have been a perfect success if ONSSA (National Office for Food Safety) hadn’t deliberately chose to boycott the event except for a brief and fleeting appearance on the first day of a local service chief. The host African experts, responsible in their respective countries for food guardianship agencies, quickly noticed this absence. Some were even stunned to learn that the Director General of ONSSA, who was invited in the forms required by AEFS,
and who had promised in phone communication to honor us with his presence, has decided to snub our present guests in an event that constitutes the center of ONSSA’s work. Not only did he not appear at this major event which aims to consolidate Dakhla’s place as a Moroccan Hub for South-South cooperation, according to the orientations of His Majesty King Mohammed VI, but obviously Mr. Bentouhami also prohibited its Staff from attending the JIED.
At the summit of the State, the call is made so that each self-respecting Moroccan official is involved in the policy of the Kingdom to move towards more South-South cooperation. As our sub-Saharan neighbors mainly trade in agro-food products, it is natural for Morocco to pay particular attention to cooperation in this sector, in which the organizations concerned, first and foremost among them ONSSA must be present. But is Mr. Bentouhami aware of the scope of the food safety issue in the policy of our country to serve as examples to our neighbors to the South? It is unfortunately permissible to doubt this. The following example (of our archives) of the work of amateur of Mr. Bentouhami:
A little more than a year ago, a company from the Place de Casablanca asked for my expert opinion on the refusal of import (that it considers unjustified) of one of its products (Cochineal carmine dye), from Latin America .
After reviewing the file, it became clear to me that this was an arbitrary and abusive decision. I then write a note to the address of Mr. Bentouhami which is delivered to him by hand with a discharge.
A few days later, the ONSSA services of the port of Casablanca called the freight forwarder of the company by telephone to ask him to come and retrieve the merchandise which became all of a sudden acceptable.
But you know what they say: ridicule does not kill. On closer examination, the first refusal document (see under link) and the second acceptance document (see under link) can be superimposed in the sense that they are signed by the same persons, a few days apart , once for refusal and a second time for acceptance without further explanation, neither written nor oral. One can imagine the reverse, food products that enter Morocco on equally arbitrary bases. If it is not the height of amateurism, it resembles it very much. So what is the credibility of the organization ONSSA in all this under the direction of Mr. Bentouhami? Under other skies, the leader of such an authority would have resigned for less than that, and the “engineers” signing the documents would have been taken to disciplinary councils and dismissed for not being up to the job. But if Mr. Bentouhami didn’t do it, it seems to me, it is because, for him, it’s like water off a duck’s back. And the same goes for the boycott of the JIED.
