The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has said it will investigate a consignment of emergency rice for earthquake survivors in Gorkha district that were found to be spoilt.
Senior WFP officials flew to Laprak in Gorkha with the Chief District Officer Uddhav Timilsina to inspect the rice, which had been taken to the remote region in tractors last week. They found that the rice was indeed spoilt, possibly due to water seepage and heat.
WFP said out of 485 sacks of rice sent to Laprak, 120 were found to be spoilt. This was rice that was part of the 600,000 tons of rice that WFP has procured from Nepal and India for its first and second phase of emergency food assistance to feed two million people in earthquake-affected areas of Central Nepal.
“It’s a big operation and everything needs to go right, and when it does not, we are accountable,” said Richard Ragan WFP’s Emergency Coordinator for Nepal. “This is the first time such a case has happened to me.”
Ragan said WFP would now inspect all rice in its warehouses and is hiring additional staff from the Ministry of Agriculture to check them. WFP said it would also try to isolate the problem to the supplier of rice, the transporter of its warehouse storage in Nepalganj, or in Gorkha, Sindupalchok and Dolakha.
Ragan added: “The results of the tests will be made public as soon as we find out what happened. None of the damaged rice was distributed and will be immediately replaced.”
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