The Public Relations Officer (PRO) of Marwako Restaurant, Alhaji Mohammed Lamptey, has indicated that investigations are still ongoing regarding the suspected food poisoning by the restaurant.
According to Alhaji Lamptey, lots of factors have to be considered in bringing out a final report, as such, the restaurant has to conduct its investigations in order to ascertain the actual cause of the food poisoning.
“The internal investigations that we started on Monday will continue but as we earlier indicated, we need to find out the time that they bought the food, the type of food that they bought and what they ate and all that. Just yesterday, another narrative came from some customers and another banker who bought food for all the family, gave me another interesting report of what happened.”
Alhaji Mohammed Lamptey
Alhaji Lamptey disclosed that Marwako cannot make known details of its investigations now because additional information is being added to draw a final conclusion. He added that the investigation is not only centered on the food consumed but on the staff as well.
“Even the staff on duty, we are trying to scrutinize them to see if there could probably be some element of negligence or it maybe due to the inexperience of those in charge of the kitchen at the time.”
Alhaji Mohammed Lamptey
According to the PRO, those who bought food in the early hours of the day the incident happened haven’t reported any illness but rather those who purchased during the latter hours of the day. “So, that is why we are trying to single out everything that could have been a possible cause of everything that happened to us.”
Alhaji Lamptey averred that the outburst on social media has added a lot of challenges not only in Ghana but across the globe. According to him, although social media users are saying the suspected food poisoning stemmed from the coleslaw, the restaurant has variety of foods of which one could have caused the suspected poisoning.
“If you look at what is going on on social media, especially twitter, these are people who are not professionals in terms of story telling techniques and they just write something and put it there and there is nothing to verify or authenticate their information.”
Alhaji Mohammed Lamptey
Hygiene permit had expired
Meanwhile, the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) has revealed that the East Legon branch of Marwako where the suspected food poisoning occurred had its hygiene permit expired at the time of the reported incident.
The Director for Legal and Corporate Affairs at the FDA, Joseph Bennie, giving details of the FDA’s investigations into the food poisoning stated that, the La branch of Marwako restaurant does not even have food hygiene permit to operate. “They put in an application in the last two week and we received the application as far back as last week.”
The Lawyer stated that the FDA will have to confirm if the Abelemkpe branch of the restaurant has a permit to operate after the concerns raised following the suspected food poison at the East Legon branch of Marwako restaurant.
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