MAFF emerges as BSE scapegoat

27 November 1998

MAFF emerges as BSE scapegoat

By FWi staff

THE Ministry of Agriculture (MAFF) has emerged as the principal scapegoat for the BSE crisis, reports the Financial Times today (Friday).

The newspaper says the evidence presented so far to the BSE Inquiry shows a catalogue of blunders and incompetence across Whitehall – both among politicians and civil servants.

But MAFF is implicated in a key blunder – the lax enforcement of the 1989 ban on specified bovine offal.

The FT says there were flaws in its dual role of advising ministers on policy and executing policy.

The European Union has already separated these functions and so have Germany, Austria and Sweden.

• Financial Times 27/11/98 page 14