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Paying the price

(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-12-29 07:36

Repentance for an offense is good, but paying for it even better. The decision by the 22 dairy firms found to have sold melamine-tainted baby formula to compensate families of sick children is thus a commendable move.

The companies have offered to make one-off cash payments to the families, and create a fund to cover the victims' potential future medical bills. In thus shouldering responsibility they hope to earn forgiveness of the families, as well as of the public.

Although the size of the remedy is not known yet, this is a responsible action to right the wrongs they have done.

Damages must be paid to the families of the six children who died and about 294,000 others who suffered from urinary problems after drinking the problematic formula.

We hope the compensation will help heal the pains inflicted on them.

The compensation is also a face-saving move for the companies. This can be a concrete step for the dairy industry to break the vicious cycle that began with the addition of the industrial chemical in milk to cheat protein tests. The public faith in dairy products was shattered by the scandal. As a result, the dairy industry is suffering heavy losses, with Sanlu Group, which is at the heart of the scandal, collapsing.

By offering to compensate, the firms are making efforts to shoulder corporate responsibility, an aspect which has long been neglected by some manufacturers in their pursuit of profit. This could help restore public confidence in the companies, and the dairy industry as a whole.

The food-safety scandal is a warning to companies that put profits above everything else. Yet we cannot say this will be the last such case, as food safety is a complicated issue worldwide. Therefore, the current remedy plan helps raise the question of how to set up a mechanism to compensate the victims in a fair and timely way.

In such cases, it is not enough for guilty companies to shoulder the responsibility alone, for there may have been other parties that had their own lapses, such as dereliction of duty. Or such companies may go bankrupt without any money set aside for remedy to individuals.

(China Daily 12/29/2008 page4)