What should the Indian rojak man be charged for?

What should the Indian rojak man be charged for?

The Geylang Serai mass food poisoning saga appears to be drawing to a close with the charging of the Indian rojak stallholder Sheik Allaudin Mohideen who was taken aback when told that he may wind up in court and rightly so.

Both NEA and the Ministry of Health said investigations into the food poisoning incident, which left two people dead and 152 others ill, have been “completed”. (read report here)

They said they had found “food and environmental hygiene lapses” at the stall, and that they would take Mr Allaudin to court.

The question is: did alleged lapses lead directly to the food poisoning incident and was Mr Sheik Allaudin responsible for the lapses?

Even MOH and NEA admit that they are unclear about the exact steps leading to the contamination of the rojak food items or gravy.

Neither was the bacteria Vibrio parahaemolyticus established as the cause of the two fatalities as their coroners’ reports are yet to be finalized.

I am perturbed that NEA went ahead to prosecute Mr Allaudin with such flimsy evidence at hand anyway.

Are the alleged “lapses in food and environmental hygiene” sufficient grounds to charge Mr Allaudin?

It is still not known if the bacteria originates from the rojak, raw seafood or the gravy itself.

Mr Allaudin might have been negligent in the handling and preparation of his rojak, but that alone does not constitute a criminal offence since it has not been proven that his actions had led to the mass food poisoning.

As for lapses in environment hygiene, should Mr Allaudin be responsible for the spring-cleaning when it has not been called by the management committee?

What about the 100 or more rats which were captured at the market’s premises last week? Who is going to be responsible for the lapse in environmental hygiene?

Since NEA is one of the involved parties, it should not be allowed to conduct any investigations at all.

In fact, an independent panel should be set up to probe the possible lapses by the market’s management committee and NEA itself.

There is obviously a general failure of enforcement here which cannot be attributed solely to the hawkers alone.

While the stallholders of the Geylang Serai temporary market owe a duty to their customers to practise food and environmental hygiene at all times, the maintenance of the market as well as the surveillance process lies solely with the management committee and NEA.

The members of the market’s management committee should be charged in court for gross negligence in discharging their duties. The errant NEA officers who failed to detect the hygiene lapses and the presence of rats should be punished too.

The haste in which Mr Allaudin was charged seemed to give one the impression that he was being made a scapegoat to take the rap for others.

Till today, we have not the slightest idea on the identities of the management committee’s members. Who is in charge of the management committee? Is he a member of the Kampong Ubi CCC too? Why aren’t they taken to task for mismanaging the Geylang Serai temporary market?

Regardless of the verdict passed on Mr Allaudin, the management committee and NEA should be hauled up to courts as well to account for their mistakes which may have played a contributory role to Singapore’s worst food poisoning outbreak.

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