BY JOHN HOUANIHAU
Honourable Dr. Culwick Togamana has thanked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and External Trade, for securing of funds for the National Public Health Laboratory in the country.
The Minister for MHMS made the statement when delivering his key address at the ground breaking ceremony of a new office space for the National Public Health laboratory held last week at the SINU-Kukum campus.
“Today marks another milestone of the cooperation and working relationship between the key government ministries, donor partners and private sectors.
“I wish to extend our deepest appreciation to the ‘Enhanced Integrated Framework of World Trade Organisation through the MFAET for funding the SI enhanced capacities for ‘Agriculture Trade Project’ which include the improvement of the NPHL, and supply of basic laboratory equipment.
“On this note I sincerely thank the Hon. Colleague Minister for Foreign Affairs Ministry, Hon. Manele especially for this funding which is made possible through your Ministry and I sincerely acknowledge that with appreciation,’’ Dr. Togamana delivered.
“I condemn the lab facility during a visit in 2018 with Hon. Prime Minister Rick Hou to the NRH, because staff working there are using the same space to do the analysis also for testing, which is totally against occupational health and safety at work.
“In agriculture we used fertilizers some which contains heavy metals and to identify or ascertain any chemical treat, such a quality facility is required to test those,’’ He said.
He furthered that with the new office space, it will enable the NPHL with the current ISO 17025 at accommodation requirement that will boost local testing capacity to international standards for the export of agricultural products such as cassava and taro.
“For certification purposes it is important that the laboratory must meet certain requirements and the requirement for ISO required that the staff currently working in this lab must have a separate accommodations.
“That is important because the staffs themselves can be a contaminants, they can be a source of interference in the analysis through whatever they do there, so it is important that the lab facility must be free of any potential contaminants,’’ said Dr. Togamana.
“This new accreditation will bring new potentials for our products to enter the world market. You have to ask yourself why taro, cassava and other root crop from the pacific have entered the New Zealand and Australian market.
“This are from countries such as Fiji, Samoa and Tonga. The reason for that is that they have facilities that are able to certify, that these products are free from pests and safe from contaminants. And so it creates that opportunity,’’ he said.
