Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/573382
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 20 SEPTEMBER 2015 News 7 JAMES DEBONO THE European Commission is still not satisfied with Malta's abil- ity to reinforce its border controls against the entry of animal prod- ucts falling foul of strict EU stand- ards. A report by the Food and Veteri- nary Office, based on an inspection carried out in November 2014, found a number of shortcom- ings in Malta's border inspection mechanisms which are reducing its ability to prevent non compli- ant consignments of live animals or products of animal origin. The shortcomings include the lack of enforcement to ensure that all goods transhipped from Malta to other member states are checked, and the issue of certifi- cates at the airports by staff who are unsupervised by official veteri- narians as required by EU law. In an official reply, the Maltese government claims that official veterinarians are now issuing all certificates. Veterinary border controls en- sure that the live animals and products of animal origin entering the European Union are safe and meeting the specific import con- ditions laid down in Community legislation. "The imported live animals and products of animal origin present the highest level of risks as they can transmit serious human and animal diseases. Therefore it is necessary to subject them to spe- cific controls at their point of entry, so called veterinary border inspection ports (BIPs)," the EU commission's website warns. A consignment of live animals or product of animal origin can only enter the EU, if it has satisfactorily undergone the specific checks and a Common Veterinary Entry Doc- ument (CVED) is issued. The report noted that the au- thorities do not monitor tran- shipped consignments of veteri- nary products handled in the port during weekends. "This poses a risk of products of animal origin being transhipped without having been checked at the Border Inspection Post," the report says. According to the report the Bor- der Inspection Post in the port op- erates from 7am to 3pm Monday to Friday. But according to data from the port operator, the level of activity is the same during all days of the week including weekends. The lack of controls on tranship- ments has been a recurrent short- coming identified in previous FVO audits and according to the report the competent authority has not taken measures to effectively ad- dress the recommendations made in 2011. On a positive note the latest re- port reveals that the official import control system meets the general requirements in relation to com- munication, training, instructions and resources. But the system fails to ensure that: "official controls on transhipped consignments are performed where needed and that official controls are always per- formed by authorised staff". The report states that the staff interviewed at BIPs and at central level were qualified and demon- strated good knowledge of the le- gal requirements. One major shortcoming is the system operated at the airport. In the airport BIP the official vet- erinarian is present once a week, and support staff perform more than 95% of the official import controls, including the signing and the issuing of CVEDs. This means that official controls are not per- formed under the responsibility of the official veterinarian, contrary to the requirements of EU direc- tives. The auditors also found that the signing of CVEDs at the airport is being done by support staff instead of the official veterinarians as stip- ulated in EU directives. Although this breach in EU regulations was already noted in 2011, the Maltese authorities have not addressed it in order to have only official vet- erinarians signing the CVEDs. Another major problem iden- tified by the report is the lack of enforcement in obliging shipping agents to pre notify consignments of products of animal origins, which are transhipped from Malta to other destinations. "The competent authority does not use the different sources of in- formation to detect non-notified consignments and the controls are therefore not done when re- quired." According to the Maltese au- thorities cited in the report no further action to enforce the pre- notification requirements was done as the shipping agents had demonstrated a remarkable im- provement in the pre-notification activity. But the audit team noted that this could not be confirmed by any report or relevant informa- tion. The report describes the im- provement of the system since an audit was carried out as very lim- ited. In their reply to the report the Maltese authorities said that in order to strengthen controls at BIP, a new official veterinarian has been employed. Moreover the Maltese govern- ment replied that since the 2014 mission took place, "checks are solely carried out by Official Vet- erinarians (OVs). For this reason an ad hoc roster has been created to guarantee that releases are car- ried out by OVs also after normal working hours". No border inspectors on weekends, animal products going unchecked EU audit finds shortcomings in border controls against the entry of animal products The EU found a lack of enforcement on goods transhipped from Malta to other EU states