Restaurant owners, food vendors and other food handlers will soon benefit from a new measure allowing food badges to remain valid for one year from the date of issue — a move expected to reduce the frequency of renewals.
The change comes as the Senate, on Tuesday, passed amendments to the Public Health Ordinance.
Minister of Rural Development and Local Government, Khadijah Ameen, explained the need for the amendment.
“While historically in Trinidad and Tobago all food badges expired at December 31st regardless of when they were issued, what you found was that it caused a bottleneck. You could imagine in every public health department all of the food badges expiring at once and everybody has to renew at once.”
Minister Ameen noted that there are tens of thousands of food handlers who will be affected positively by the change in the legislation and called on the Opposition and Independent Senators to support the amendment.
“This is a simple policy shift, Mr. President, amending the Public Health Ordinance to allow for food badges to be valid for 12 months from the date of issue, and it is really designed to ease that administrative burden.”
The amendment was passed unanimously by the Senate.