Open letter to Prime Minister of India to address "Conflict of Interest" in FSSAI

Open letter to Prime Minister of India to address "Conflict of Interest" in FSSAI

To,

The Prime Minister of India

Prime Minister's Office

New Delhi.

Subject: File No. 13(36)2019/Guidelines on Private Companies/ RCD/FSSAI: Addressing Conflict of Interest while “Working with the private sector”

After a lot of pressure from civil society on the growing incidences of “Conflict of Interest” in FSSAI decision-making process, at last, this is a good initiative by FSSAI, but still, many gaps exist. Sometimes it appears that these gaps are deliberately left to please certain sections of societies or interest groups. If these are due to just oversight than the following suggestions will help in addressing the gaps.

Let me elaborate many of them for your kind consideration and expect the following should be addressed before finalization and the revised draft should be issued again for the public comment. This will help you in fixing the issues related to “Conflict of Interest” effectively and properly.

Let me elaborate key points missing from the draft note:

1. No format is given to seek inputs “Conflict of interest declaration by all participants.

There is no formate given to seek inputs “Conflict of interest” declaration by all participants. This is a big risk because the conflict of declaration format can be very sketchy and may just be an eyewash and may not capture the relevant information. This must be drafted and circulated immediately. FSSAI may study OECD and WHO formats and add more conditions to it but nothing should be reduced. This will make FSSAI more effective than them and nothing should be reduced from these formats. These formats should be hosted on FSSAI website so that whoever comes for the meeting must know what is expected from him in the declaration and he or she should come with proper information. If there is any conflict person should not turn-up for the meeting.

Request: Please order FSSAI to draft the “Conflict of Interest” declaration format and circulate them and place on the website for public comments.

2. What about the wrong declaration by participants? What is the mechanism to prevent this, not mentioned in the draft policy note.

There is no mention what will happen if someone is giving the wrong declaration and how FSSAI will check whether declaration is correct or not.

Suggestion: Due to massive lack of trust in FSSAI management because of lack of transparency in its functioning, ensure that all declarations are made public with Minutes of meetings and if any person or whistle-blower has any information can raise the issue with FSSAI and after verification FSSAI should blacklist that person or organisation forever from any meeting.

FSSAI should make the feedback system more transparent and no official should take a call on it. If it is required, then official of CEO rank must make written justification in the file, why he is ignoring whistle-blowers complaint on “Conflict of Interest”. SEBI has developed an effective system, the same can be studied and implemented. All these documents should be available under the RTI Act.

3. How citizens can file a complaint about the “conflict of interests” in meetings?

There is no mention about it and the CEO should be made accountable for all complaints filed by the citizens in case of Conflict of the Internet. Other staff will not be in a position to oppose the dictate of the CEO in case of conflict of interests.

Request: Proper format and method of submission should be developed at the earliest and it should be online and traceable. Status of the application or complaint should be known to the public.

4. No foreign-funded agency (Company or NGO) should be part of policymaking body as mentioned under the FCRA Act.

Recently the government has taken action against many foreign-funded NGOs interesting in policy-making bodies. 

FSSAI is silent on this vital issue. Is this a deliberate attempt or oversight. This is vital to ensure the sovereignty of the policymaking at FSSAI.

Request: Any company or agency including NGOs getting any foreign funding cannot be part of the decision making meetings or committees as mentioned under the FCRA Act. They can send their inputs or requests with proper justifications and evidence to the committee. All these documents to be made public to ensure transparency in the system, but they cannot be part of any committee or decision-making process. Please ask FSSAI to mention this clearly in the policy while finalising the said document.

There should not be an exception to anyone including Companies, NGOs, scientists or individuals.

The same should apply to Codex meetings as well where India's national interest is at stake. In Codex, many multi-national NGOs do play role to push the donors' agenda and cross boarded issues do impact domestic policies.

4. No foreign-funded agency (Company or NGO or individual) should be part of Codex related delegation or policy-making body.

FSSAI is silent on this. Is this a deliberate attempt or oversight. This is vital to ensure the sovereignty of the policymaking in India and at FSSAI.

Request: Any company or agency including NGOs getting any foreign-finding cannot be part of the decision making meetings or committees. They can send their inputs or requests with proper justifications and evidence to the committee. All these documents to be made public to ensure transparency in the system, but cannot be part of any committee or decision-making process. Please mention this clearly in the policy while finalising the said document.

There should not be an exception to anyone including Companies, NGOs, scientists or individuals. Globally there are experiences that these can be planted by vested interests.

The same should apply to Codex meetings as well. In Codex, cross boarded issues do impact domestic policies. All codex positions of India should be made public before the delegation leaves for the meetings. This is the way all developed countries take local industry and national interests into consideration.

In case of special situation, the CEO should give a prior undertaking with reasons and seek approval in writing from the Minister concerned with justification why the deviation from the established norms is essential and what alternate attempts were made to ensure that no deviations from the established procedures are required. We have enough expertise in India to handle any issue in any forum.

All members of the delegations should also sign “Conflict of Interest” declaration and must be made public.

5. Food testing laboratories and Conflict of Interest:

Transparency is vital to prevent Conflict of Interest. All laboratories must submit their monthly report on the FSSAI websites mentioning samples received, samples tested, samples found unfit, substandard or adulterated.

FSSAI or concerned state government must also give declaration what action they have taken on the unsafe or unfit samples.

Request:

If laboratories approved by FSSAI are credible and trustworthy, there must daily Food Safety Alert to warn the citizens not to buy unsafe or substandard foods. Why these vital inputs are not shared by citizens to save their health and life? Are these laboratories approved by FSSAI not credible or there is any hidden agenda which is more vital than public health?

Any laboratory issuing fitness certificate to export sample and if that consignment faces rejection in any importing country. The FSSAI and laboratory must explain and FSSAI must launch an investigation to identify the reasons and also delist them under the conflict of interest in the laboratory.

This aspect should be included in the policy issued by FSSAI.

6. Training in collaboration with agencies created by the private sector or NGOs:

FSSAI, like SEBI, should appoint independent directors in the top management to such institutes where such collaboration is required. There must be separate Board of Directors for all such organisations where FSSAI wants to collaborate. These bodies should not be the department of the funding agencies to avoid conflict of interest. Create Special purpose vehicle (SPV) and ensure more than 50% of top managers of this Special purpose vehicle (SPV) must be appointed by GOI via FSSAI through an open selection process. The head of the institute should be reporting to FSSAI, not to the company funding the same. This is the only way to control conflict of interest, otherwise, the money will make the mare go and top managers will always sing the tune of the agency funding it.

Request: Unless management of these bodies is not independent in nature and not reporting to FSSAI in place of funding agencies, this cannot be achieved. If this cannot be done, then such collaboration cannot be devoid of “Conflict of Interest”.

7. FSSAI should lead by example and make it's own functioning and systems transparent before asking others to sign “Conflict of Interest”

Any initiative was taken by FSSAI which impacts all sections of society must make all papers, reference documents and Minutes of Meeting public. There cannot be confidentiality when food safety and public health is the agenda. This is required to ensure that such mass initiatives should not impact any section of society negatively. 

Some illogical steps taken by FSSAI due to lack of transparency are Programs like mass fortification of staples with toxic synthetic vitamins with proper identification of their source whether vegetarian or non-vegetarian source, reduced intake of oils and sugar for underweight children cannot be the universally correct approach. 

Use of Iodine and vitamin which are heat sensitive and do not reach the targeted audience due to high-temperature cooking in India. These are some of the examples of how FSSAI has ignored the basics of science and played in the hands of vested interest are examples of “Conflict of Interests” within FSSAI.

Excess vitamins are toxic to many sections of society and reduced caloric intake by underfed citizens or malnourished citizens can further deprive them of basic energy needs. FSSAI decision-making process ignored these vital fundamental scientific facts under the pressure of vested interests. Unfortunately, there cannot be the generalisation of any scheme in a country like India where 137 crore people have different health challenges. 

Request: CEO must ensure and should be made accountable for ensuring transparency of all details behind all decisions and documents are in the public domain to ensure confidence that no conflict of interest is having a hidden agenda behind these decisions and functioning of FSSAI. CEO should be accountable for any lapses in ensuring transparency in the FSSAI systems.

8. Outreach, training and education program and “Conflict of Interest”:

FSSAI must ensure that any company used for training is using only FSSAI material for education. No other logo or name of any agency or company should be on the literature or in the venue of training or communication and advertisements. Consumers get the wrong message when they see product or company name with FSSAI in messages.

All materials must be drafted by FSSAI and must be first circulated on the website for comments from experts in the public domain and once finalised can only be used for education. No serving executives of any companies should be part of any awareness, training or campaign. Civil society and school teachers should be involved in such awareness programs. Social media can be used extensively in regional languages as well.

Request: Like SEBI, FSSAI also collects the registration fee from FBOs and the same should be used for mass education. Social media is an effective and cheaper option. In any FSSAI event, no private party including industry associations should be allowed to use their logo or staff in any campaign they can hire civil society members for the campaign. This will prevent conflict of interest in implementation.

Good The initiative under your leadership will help public health but there are attempts to keep gaps to please certain sections of vested interests and this need to be filled.

Action speaks louder than words. The final draft will be the testimony of how serious is your government in about public health and how serious is FSSAI in the eradication of the deeply rooted problem of conflict of Interests in its decision-making process responsible for the public health.

People of India via Parliament gave the mandate to FSSAI to protect their health from unsafe and substandard foods. So far FSSAI has failed due to the diversion of its attention in activities which are beyond its mandate.

Please issue the revised draft guidelines by addressing the above-mentioned points before finalisation of the same. Looking forward to urgent action in this regard.

In case any help or inputs are required from the undersigned please feel free to contact. I will continue to send my inputs on the functioning of FSSAI in public interest.

I wish you all the best for your initiatives in ensuring FSSAI as a credible and trustworthy organisation by common man and citizens of India and in importing countries.

If we do not fix these problems India will become dustbin of the world and all substandard foods will make entry into India and FSSAI will continue to hide the facts from the public to please vested interests.

Sir, in fact, India needs a proper law to avoid such situations in all sectors and in all departments. OECD and SEBI have done a great job in addressing issues of Conflict of Interests, we can learn from them.

With best regards,

Vijay Sardana

Concerned Citizen & Advocate
(Specialised On Techno-legal Matters)

CC:

1. Prime Minister’s Office

2. Concerned Ministers to GOI

3. Concerned Secretaries to GOI