The government and the private sector must do more than squabble over the standards in the dairy product sector if proper regulation is to be achieved. Cutthroat competition between small and big producers, chaotic ministerial control and sluggish exports of a mere $3 million all have to be addressed. The health standards of dairy products, which became a subject of tit-for-tat accusations late last year, are not as dire as they seem, but their problems have been writ large due the chaos gripping a private sector trying to maximize profits and a government trying to deflect attention away from its failure to boost the troubled sector. Prior to Agriculture Minister Ali Hassan Khalil’s statements last year about the poor standards of dairy producers, state prosecutors were investigating embezzlement charges by his predecessor, Ali Abdullah, who has been accused of using a $15 million loan for a dairy projects for his
