The Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) has apprehended a food vendor at the OA Bus Terminal in Accra, for selling contaminated food to the public.

The AMA in a communique revealed that the vendor by name Faustina Naana Eshien was arrested on Tuesday after it was revealed that she had been selling rotten chicken to customers.

The assembly noted that the arrest was necessitated after “a Facebook post by Obaa Yaa Bediide on the TroTro Diaries page about the discovery when she purchased from the vendor who admitted the offence and decided to split the GHC20 cost of the chicken into two citing low patronage.”

According to the Head of Public Affairs at the AMA, Mr. Gilbert Ankrah, the food vendor was apprehended for selling rotten fried chicken for public consumption and failing to obtain medical health certificate after the news broke on social media about her activities.

This, he noted, goes contrary to the AMA bye-law and the Public Health Act, 2012 (Act 851), Section 100(3) which prohibits a person from selling or offering for sale food that is unwholesome or unfit for human or animal consumption and consists in whole or in part of a filthy, putrid, rotten, decomposed or diseased animal or vegetable substance. 

The food vendor is expected to be arraigned before a court for prosecution.

The AMA hopes this action would serve as a deterrent to would-be offenders.