Personnel from that health entity was in charge of gathering information and documentation of the finding.
Drafting-Riobamba
Representatives of the National Agency for Regulation, Control and Sanitary Surveillance (Arcsa), Prosecutor’s Office and the Police Department of Chimborazo found more than 1 million units of cookies and 400,000 lanes expired since 2017, on the morning of this Wednesday 24.
The operation was deployed in two warehouses in the Riobamba Industrial Park. In the spaces, technicians from Arcsa and the other institutions located more than 25,000 cartons of these products that had already reached their useful life.
According to Arcsa, that lot found was part of the School Feeding Program (PAE) of the Ministry of Education.
The packages were marked with commercial names of the 30-gram cookies and 1-kilogram strains, with the stamps of the PAE and the Ministry of Education. “Lot PE01C116M20. Date Elab. 10/01/16. Exp. Date 04/17 ″ is what is read on one of the laundry covers, in which it also says: “PAE-Ecuador Food Program and Ministry of Education”, with its respective logo.
Cristian Tamayo, Arcsa zonal coordinator, informed this newspaper that they went to the winery under the orders of a Civil judge who determined the unlocking and release of the goods that were inside the property, which belongs to a natural person from Riobamba.
“This finding represents a serious impact on the nutrition of thousands of children and young people in the national education system, who were denied the products that we find today and that due to their expiration they can no longer be administered, because they would be a risk to their health ”, Said Ana Karina Ramírez, Arcsa’s executive director.
During the diligence, Arcsa personnel were in charge of gathering information and documentation of the find.
Ramírez explained that the damage to the State would be almost two and a half million dollars.
In addition, Tamayo indicated that the authorities of the Prosecutor’s Office and Comptroller will be asked to determine if there was any criminal offense or, failing that, breach of the contractor or the Ecuadorian State.
The Arcsa zonal coordinator commented that approximately three weeks ago they learned of a citizen complaint about a warehouse in Chimborazo where there were about 24,000 cartons with food kits that supposedly should have been distributed in public schools, apparently, in that province. Overall, there are more than 1.4 million school rations that did not reach their destination, he estimated.
He commented that the Civil Judge told them that they should start the verification protocol of the products so that they cannot enter the distribution again. In addition, he explained that it was evidenced that these foods cannot be thrown into a garbage dump or expelled to the street, but that they have to go to a custody process with the Judicial Police and the Prosecutor’s Office.
From the Communication area of Zone 3 of the Ministry of Education, it was indicated that an institutional response on this issue will be provided in the next few hours. (I)
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