FISHY BUSINESS?

First of all one should commend the DHA administration in Lahore for adhering to a policy for its restaurants that borders on a zero tolerance level. They have recently determined that every single food outlet in the DHA territory is serving unhygienic and adulterated food.

I run a café in the area and last time the DHA team came around we were found to have traces of some germ in one or two products. Not enough to make someone sick but enough to register on the DHA’s super-efficient testing devices. All good so far, but when I approached the outwardly not so pristine and sparkling offices of the DHA food department to ask them for some guidance as well as brochures and information about how to contain certain levels of microscopic bacteria (that is generally found on any table top if left in normal conditions for five minutes). However when the SS sorry, DHA Food department was asked to provide some guidance or indeed any information at all about how to maintain hygiene in a commercial kitchen or restaurant, they were speechless – the entire lot of them, completely lost for words, other than the general “aap log zara safai zyada dehan se karain”. One of their spotlessly clean officers uttered “shaid kissi affcer ki biwi ne aap ki prices pe etraz kiya hoga, is liye aap ka naam aya hae!”

Then we were referred to someone else for information, who referred us to someone else, who referred us to someone else and the circle of fobbing off continued in this manner. From nowhere in the DHA food department and from no person was any information forthcoming about how to manage the very germs that they reported to be within our kitchens and the items that we sell. This is same DHA, it ought to be noted that provides tap water for its citizens and its restaurant owners that is laced with all sorts of germs. I would interested as to what levels of micro biotic germs exist in the kitchens, canteens and offices of the DHA itself?

This begs the question, what is the hygiene drive really about. Admittedly, there are some outlets that may not be as careful as others but to apply a set of undeclared rules that would shame the top most restaurants in the world are nothing short of crassly ridiculous. Remember that Pakistan is a land where 90% of the population still doesn't’t have access to running water or toilets or drains, even when there is running water each faucet flows with contamination that has the capacity to kill.

This in a country that ranks among the lowest 10% when it comes to hygiene and hygienic practices! That the DHA should go around declaring that restaurants should be mopping their floor tiles every single hour (I am serious, they absolutely huge on this one) while they themselves cannot provide the slightest shred or guidance about how to achieve these insane levels of hygiene that they feel they must aspire to - so when the Premiere next goes abroad to Berlin or to Davos he can chew his lobster amid exhortations about how Pakistan has the highest cleanliness levels in the world when it comes to food, which is almost as sublime as Soft Pakistan or Visit Pakistan in 2007 are utterly delusional. Pakistan, in 2007 is second only to Iraq as the worlds playground for suicide bombers.

So, for Pakistan and the DHA Lahore in particular to suddenly demand the most incredible standards of hygiene and yet provide absolutely no means of achieving them – this can only be a thinly veiled scam. I am confident my customers at The Hot Spot know that the food made in our kitchens is certainly a lot more hygienic that the food served in the canteen at the DHA food department or in the bade sahib’s kitchens.

This hygiene drive, unless supported by a campaign of awareness and implementation is nothing more than another thinly veiled extortion scam in the guise of hygiene. Restaurant owners need to demand that the DHA provide us not only with the methods of achieving their ludicrous goals but also the means of achieving them. At the same time they might also provide us with some information as to what levels of bacteria are found naturally in each and every single food source and how certain levels of bacteria exist in the air and cannot be exterminated at all.

The notion of achieving a more hygienic nation with restaurants and shops and tap water all being contamination free is a brilliant one and but the DHA’s steps in this endeavor smack of misplaced zeal and dubious intentions. Especially as when they are asked for any information or for guidance, they are, to a man, gob smacked and speechless!