Rwanda to rank all Hotels and Restaurants

The Ministry of Health (MoH) will start ranking hotels and restaurants according to its Food Safety laws in March, 2011. This comes after the cabinet approved the draft policy proposal. According to Joseph Katabarwa, the Head of Environmental Health and Food Safety at MoH, “earlier inspections were not well coordinated and resulted in unproductive results.” “Since food safety and sanitation is an ongoing process, the ministry is working very hard to sensitize all restaurant workers about hygiene,” he said. Some of the sensitive areas monitored during the inspection process are; storage areas, toilets, kitchens and the people in charge of preparing and serving food. “The MoH will issue certificates of hygiene to all business partners after the respective inspections. These certificates will be hanged at every reception or entrance for all clients to see,” Katabarwa said. The classification will be done in four categories; category A will stand for Excellent marked in green, B for Good in yellow, C for Not Good in grey and D for Worst place to eat in red. Katabarwa said the MoH will continue to sensitise food and hospitality companies on how to do business in a clean environment but when they fail, the police will get involved and do away with unhygienic restaurants. Since 2005 an increasing number of food poisoning cases have been reported. mbbz_pelagie@yahoo.com