Activist Srisuwan Janya will today ask the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) to investigate the Department of Livestock Development (DLD) after traders complained its staff spent too much time inspecting meat, leading it to become rotten.
"The DLD even campaigns about the safety of animal meat before releasing it to consumers but that practice is quite contradictory," Mr Srisuwan, secretary-general of Association for the Protection of the Thai Constitution, said yesterday.
He said he would submit evidence and a record of traders' complaints to the NACC at 10am today.
Mr Srisuwan said he decided to appeal to the NACC after many meat traders sent him complaints.
These accused the DLD of dereliction of duty for spending too much time inspecting their products. They further claimed this had caused them substantial losses.
Traders are required to send meat for DLD testing in compliance with the Animal Epidemics Act 2015, which stipulates that every meat exporter must obtain a DLD-issued licence.
The meat inspection must be conducted in DLD-approved places, often piers and ports from where the products being transported.
The inspection involves many agencies and officials, including veterinarians and quarantine checkpoint chiefs, who are tasked with controlling the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, exporters said the veterinarians and checkpoint chiefs took far too long inspecting the meat before releasing it, leading to it deteriorating in quality.
Traders also lamented that the DLD was never held responsible for damage caused to goods, said Mr Srisuwan.
The overly long time spent inspecting the meat was also causing damage to the wider import-export businesses of entrepreneurs.
Some inspections took as long as 528, 757 and 805 days, he added.