FG threatens to prosecute food vendors using transformer oil to cook

By Teide Emomotimi

The consultant to the federal ministry of environment, Babajide Alloy, in a workshop in Calabar on Tuesday has threatened to prosecute food vendors using transformer oil to prepare food items.

According to Babajide, the Federal Government is making plans on prosecuting users of Polychlorinated Biphenyl (PCBs), which is known as transformer oil, after which he stated that food made with a chemical substance will expose the public to cancer of the lungs, heart, kidney and liver diseases.

In frying “Ankara” (beans cake), plantain chips, chicken and other food items using transformer oil, which is polychlorinated Biphenyl (PCBs), which is the cooling liquid used in electricity transformers was dangerous to human consumption.

“If you are caught, a jail term awaits every user of PCBs to fry Ankara, chicken, plantain chips to sell at the roadside to the public because the oil is toxic and carcinogenic, he added.