Contrary to claims, the company is taking commendable steps to preserve additional food for eventual distribution to schools, according to Hanan Abdul-Wahab, the company’s CEO, in an interview with Eyewitness News.
He claimed that the company’s difficulties stem from the importation of food items, however efforts are being made to locate locally manufactured substitutes.
“We have sufficient resources to meet our needs, and we are making great efforts to raise our stock levels. I don’t think a lack of food is the cause of the difficulty. The majority of the food products that are of concern based on media reports are imported foods; nevertheless, we are making every effort to localize or replace these imported foods with ones that are made locally. Sardine, sugar, and mackerel. These are the things that are problematic, he said.
On Thursday, Alban Babgin, the Speaker of Parliament, paid a working visit to the company to learn about its operations, triumphs, and issues as well as potential avenues for legislative intervention.
The Speaker promised that Parliament will make sure that money was made available to the business to increase its capacity to store a lot of food in case of an emergency.
Hanan Abdul-Wahab, who is pleased with the Speaker’s guarantees, claimed that under his leadership, the company had successfully decreased its reliance on food imports because many of the commodities, such as tomato pastes, had a local equivalent.
“We have no issues with those we make here. Since we took over in 2017, we have done our best and have been able to localize a lot of things. We had to import tomato paste in 2017, but we no longer do so, he said.
