The State Audit Office of Georgia conducted performance audit covering food safety control activities as at the border as within the country. Out of the food safety control activities at the border the main focus was made on physical examination of food and fulfillment of the corresponding monitoring plan. As for the National Food Agency, the audit covered two main food safety control mechanisms – inspection and monitoring.
In the audit period, border control covered only some categories of food of animal origin and did not cover food of plant origin. Despite the positive changes implemented by the customs department, the audit revealed that the number of samples taken for laboratory examination were not in accordance with the food safety monitoring plan. Together with the shortcomings related to the number of samples, the audit revealed that the samples were not tested on all the parameters defined in the monitoring plan. The imported food is sold at the local market, where food safety is controlled via inspection and monitoring mechanisms of food safety control.
The audit revealed that in the audit period, the agency did not have complete, accurate and timely information about the food business operators operating in the country. In the audit period, the agency did not access risk profiles of all food business operators and consequently did not possess full information about the risks created by the food business operators in the market.
The audit revealed that productivity in the inspection process is low and there is potential to increase the number of inspections twofold. Low productivity is mainly caused by the small number of inspections defined in the inspection plan.
In the audit period, execution of monitoring mechanism of food safety control was conducted with deficiencies, too. The agency did not conduct scientific risk assessment of risks related to food safety.
The audit revealed deficiencies in the direction of selection and territorial distribution of food business operators/premises. Specifically, analyzing the existing practice of selection of food business operators for monitoring purposes revealed that selected food business operators for monitoring were mainly located in the same district while the number of registered food business operators is higher in other districts.
The audit revealed deficiencies in the communication of the agency with the customers. The conducted analysis revealed that ‘hot line’ works only in working days/hours in the agency and there is no proper system of ‘call center’.
Based on analysis and conclusions, corresponding recommendations, which SAO considers important for improving existing situation, are presented.
