The repacking of iodized salt from large units into units with the capacity of 1 kg will be penalized, as will be the storing and selling of iodized salt with inappropriate iodine concentrations. This is provided in a bill that was proposed for public debates, IPN reports.
One of the bill sponsors, MP Valentina Manic said the information requested by the responsible authorities shows that the iodized salt in some of the cases is repacked from large non-hermetically sealed sacks into packs of 1 kg and is then sold in stores in non-hermetic cardboard packs.
Statistics and the quantity of imports point to a major discrepancy between the quantities of imported iodized and non-iodized salt. This fact generated suspicions that business entities avoid paying the environmental tax for 1 kg plastic packing and that non-iodized imported salt is sold as iodized salt and, as a result, the consumers buy a product of a poor quality. Also, there is no ascertaining agent and no penalties are imposed if the aforementioned violations are identified.
Valentina Manic said that together with the introduction of the tax of 1.02 lei for 1 kg packing in 2019, the imports of iodized salt decreased three-four times, from 16,400 tonnes in 2019 to 5,031 in 2021. The companies were discourage from importing iodized salt in 1 kg packing as the given tax is too large compared with the tax of 25 kg levied per packing, which represents only 3.6% of the cost of packing.
The bill authors said iodine deficiency disorders are a major public health problem that affects all the categories of people, primarily children, pregnant women and breastfeeding women. In Moldova, salt consumption is high, but the consumed salt is mostly non-iodized. “Salt is iodized to protect public health. The lack of iodine has very severe consequences for the population’s health, especially for mental health, the IQ. The provision of salt by the state is the only way to keep the population’s IQ and to avoid diseases with severe consequences that generate additional costs for the health system, including to sometimes avoid irreversible disorders. The population does not use iodized salt because this is absent,” said MP Adrian Belîi, who is a doctor by profession.
The bill provides for the reduction of the tax for primary 1 kg plastic packing with iodized salt from 1.02 lei to 0.22 lei. It also supplements the Contravention Code by introducing the first ever sanctions for the repacking of iodized salt from large units into units with the capacity of 1 kg and for the storing and selling of iodized salt with inappropriate iodine concentrations. The National Food Safety Agency will be the ascertaining agent that will be able to impose the stipulated punishments.
