Government cancels licences for private abattoirs

By Tichaona Sibanda
11 July 2007

The government is reported to have cancelled all licences for private abattoirs to force butchers to order their meat products from the state controlled Cold Storage Commission, Newsreel learned on Wednesday.

MDC MP for Kadoma central Editor Matamisa said all butchers in her constituency were told they would not be able to slaughter any animals as of Tuesday because only the CSC would do such operations. Matamisa was not sure if the government order covered Kadoma only, but suspects it applies countrywide.

The opposition legislator believes the move will give government the monopoly to control the price of meat products. In Kadoma, the CSC abattoir was decommissioned a decade ago and butchers would be forced to order their products from the CSC abattoir in Chinhoyi, 80 km away.

‘As of yesterday (Tuesday) most butchers in the town had closed shop because they were ordered to stop operations and told to buy their meat from the CSC. If this is a way of trying to win the hearts and minds of people by cracking down on industry, government should be told they are destroying the only remaining backbone of the economy,’ Matamisa said.

Before government ordered businesses to slash their prices by half, a kilogram of beef was last week selling at Z$400 000, while a kg of chicken was Z$600 000. Most meat products in Kadoma were sold out in the first days of the crackdown on supermarkets and shops and there are virtually no meat products in the town.

‘There is no butcher in Kadoma with meat. This is a recipe for disaster and how will people sustain their businesses when they are forced to buy products from far away areas when there is a dire shortage of fuel in the town,’ said Matamisa.

She added that the town has been getting water for only four hours a day and that they last had electricity on Sunday.