The law, which provides for warnings, fines, seizure and a ban on the sale of vegetables to offenders, was approved overall with 173 votes in favor, no votes against and no abstentions.
According to the executive, the law, approved in its entirety during the second ordinary plenary meeting of the fourth legislative session of the National Assembly, will also regulate the import and export of plants, parts of plants and regulated objects intended for consumption and agricultural and forestry exploration.
The diploma, which revokes Legislative Decree no. 3001/59 of 12 August, aims to “adjust the legislation to the political-administrative, economic and social reality” in force in Angola, as well as to international conventions and regional agreements related to phytosanitary protection .
“Protecting” the national territory against the introduction, establishment and dissemination of pests, diseases, weeds, pathogens and other enemies of plants and their respective parts and ensuring the health of plants and their products are some of the objectives of the law.
For the Angolan authorities, the Vegetable Health Law also aims to protect society from “economic, social and environmental damage caused by plant pests and diseases and their derivatives”.
Contributing to food security by increasing the production and quality of vegetables and their products are other fundamentals of the legal diploma, which also proposes to “discipline the production, circulation, trade and propagation of vegetative material from products of origin vegetable".
The Government says, in its reasoning report, that the law is also a “fundamental instrument for the materialization of the economic prospects of agricultural development in progress”, in the integration of Angola in the SADC (Southern African Development Community) Free Trade Market ).
The legal instrument observes that any organ of the local administration, whenever it receives verbal or written information about the real or presumed appearance of harmful agents, must immediately inform the phytosanitary entity.
"Vegetables, plant products and other regulated articles can transit through ports and airports officially designated for international traffic, provided that there is no technical risk of introducing or spreading pests," the law reads.
The import of plants, products of plant origin, including propagules (structures that give rise to new plants), fruits and seeds intended for cultivation and living organisms in any development for technical or scientific purposes and museum collections, says the diploma, "are subject to compliance with phytosanitary conditions ”.
"When required by the legislation of the importing country, a phytosanitary certificate is required for plants, parts of plants and other regulated objects, the export of these products must be accompanied by a phytosanitary certificate of origin", underlines the law.
In the field of infractions, the Vegetable Health Law includes several penalties, such as warning, fine, interdiction of establishment, seizure and prohibition of the sale of vegetables, destruction or destruction of vegetables, among others.
The law stresses that the following constitute infractions, among others, the introduction, retention, transport and circulation of plants, plant products, contaminated by pests in the national territory, without the express authorization of the phytosanitary entity.
