Hebei Official Admits Tainted Milk Misstep
09-17 18:35 Caijing
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A vice governor says officials ignored China's rule for food emergencies in the case of poisoned baby milk powder.
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By staff reporter Zhu Tao
A Hebei Province official has admitted that the provincial and Shijiazhuang city governments share responsibility for mishandling the case of contaminated milk powder that killed at least three babies and made more than 6,000 children sick across China.
Yang Chongyong, vice governor of Hebei and a standing member of the provincial committee of the Communist Party, told Caijing the city government had received reports of "problem milk powder" as early as August 2 – a month before the contamination was officially disclosed, despite a law requiring immediate notification.
According to China's food security regulation, government officials must report any emergency situation within two hours to their superiors at a higher government level.
But Shijiazhuang city officials withheld details of the milk powder problem from provincial authorities for an entire month, Yang said, and Hebei officials spent a full day investigating the emergency before reporting to their superiors.
"Our understanding of both the severity of the case and national regulations on emergency reactions are inadequate," said Yang.
In the wake of the crisis, a deputy mayor of Shijiazhuang and four other local officials overseeing food quality and farming were sacked September 16.
The serious delay in emergency reporting apparently started at Sanlu, a Hebei-based dairy products manufacturer that so far has been targeted as the main source of the baby formula milk products blamed for the sicknesses, such as kidney stones, and deaths.
The company apparently knew about the problem long before the local government, but managed to keep a lid on the scandal for five months by trying behind-the-scenes remedies such as private compensation for victims, customer refunds, and a local media advertising campaign promoting the quality of its products.
An initial police investigation has pointed to milk supply stations, which collect milk from area dairy farmers, as the major source of the poisoning linked to a chemical additive called melamine.
Initially, Sanlu said dairy farmers had added the melamine, which causes kidney failure, to their milk to increase tested levels of protein. But police found that the melamine actually was added to milk at 41 of Sanlu's 372 supply stations.
On Wednesday, police arrested Sanlu's former chairman and CEO, Tian Wenhua, in connection with the scandal.
All suspects identified by police so far in the case, including 27 still under investigation and four who were arrested before Tian, were managers for milk stations that supply Sanlu plants.
According to police, suspects have admitted to adding melamine to milk as early as 2005.
Meanwhile, questions remain about the source of contaminated milk products sold by another 22 companies that were named September 16 as part of an investigation by the central government's State Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ).
The head of AQSIQ, Li Changjiang, said his agency is investigating suppliers for the 22 companies.
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