Authority passes audits for Union

By DALE LUMA
THE National Fisheries Authority (NFA) has passed three audits required by the European Union (EU) on fisheries and product standards, NFA’s acting managing director Audit Certification Unit Veronica Graut says.
The 2019 PNG Standards for Fish and Fishery Products food safety and trade requirements was launched yesterday.
The EU receives 99 per cent of PNG’s fishery products and imposes stringent import requirements.
“The European Union have a directorate responsible for creating laws and ensuring that EU food laws are being met,” she said.
“They have these laws to protect them from countries that they import from.
“They conduct audit on us because they are the ones that gave us the status of competent authority through the European Commission, which recognised us as the competent authority for fish and fishery products in PNG.
“These means that they see that we have the systems and controls in place to regulate the industry and food safety in PNG, to ensure that whatever fish and fishery products that our licenced operators produce and manufacture and place on the market are safe for human consumption.
“They also have a duty to protect their citizens.
“For them to come and audit us gives them that assurance that the Government has done its part to ensure that the exporters, producers and manufacturers are abiding by the rules, law, regulations and standards. So far they have done three audits – two for food safety and one for legality of the catches.”
She said the audits were conducted in 2007, 2015 and 2017. The findings of some the audits can be incorporated into the standards.”