Livestock farmers seek Parly intervention
MANZINI - Livestock farmers have resolved to engage the Ministry of Agriculture Parliament Portfolio Committee on their frustrations regarding slaughtering their animals.
This was concluded in a meeting held at the Liberty Church Hall in Manzini on Tuesday. The farmers reached this consensus after the interim committee, which is led by Ernest Mamba, reported back to them that they had failed to get much assistance in a meeting with the Minister of Agriculture, Mandla Tshawuka.
The interim committee represents stakeholders, who are butcheries and restaurants, slaughter facilities (abattoirs) and livestock farmers. They met the minister over 10 issues.
Issues
These issues were to forward appreciation to Tshawuka for his intervention in addressing the ban/effected regulations on handling and slaughter of cattle by the industry players.
The meeting between the interim committee and the minister was held on March 1, 2024, at the Ministry of Agriculture’s premises. Mamba presented to the farmers that they met Tshawuka for 30 minutes before he left for another meeting.
They claimed that for a better part of the 30-minutes meeting they discussed who the members of the interim committee were and who they represented.
Mamba reported to the meeting that thereafter, they engaged on the agenda of the day, which sought to establish why they were being turned back when seeking permits to slaughter their livestock yet Tshawuka had announced that the ban had been lifted. Mamba said:
“The minister insisted that the ban was lifted and farmers needed to have their house in order when seeking permits to slaughter at any place.”
He said getting their house in order meant that they should meet the three conditions which require them to slaughter at slaughter points, butcheries must be licensed and outstanding permits should be handled by veterinary and livestock officers.
Mamba said these three conditions were not considered in the status quo-ante (before January 1, 2024) which the minister said things were reverting to.
The deliberations among the farmers dwelled on this issue as they claimed that they were being frustrated such that many of them were being turned back when seeking livestock permits.
They claimed that they were informed that they had outstanding permits which boggled their minds as to who should collect them because, in their understanding, veterinary and livestock officers had the onus to collect them as they were the property of government.
The farmers were of the view that they should not be punished for permits and or passbooks which were not collected from their businesses by government officials.
Among the farmers, former Legislator Machawe Mavuso questioned what instrument was in place to revoke the ban which compelled all livestock being slaughtered for business purposes to be butchered at abattoirs.
Mavuso said the reasoning for his question was based on the fact that he had approached a number of veterinary and livestock officers seeking to establish if he could get a permit to transport and slaughter his cattle.
“They all told me that there was a ban and there is nothing communicating in their system that this had changed,” Mavuso said.
He said the lack of an instrument was a challenge as they could not even seek the intervention of the courts given that they would not have any form of evidence to present in court.
Mavuso proposed that the farmers should seek the services of an attorney to get recourse in the issue. He said an alternative could be to seek the intervention of the Ministry of Agriculture portfolio committee in Parliament so that they could assist them.
The former legislator said the politicians could deal with the issue and have the farmers earn money while the conditions assigned to the lifting of the ban were being dealt with.
Uplifting
The uplifting of the ban was, according to Tshawuka, to be followed by adequate and inclusive stakeholder engagements or consultations, focusing on the impediments relating to the operationalisation of this long-standing legislation and coming up with a seamless way of implementing it going forward.
Also, it has to ascertain the adequacy of abattoirs from the perspective of both sheer numbers and distribution; lastly, the Directorate of Veterinary and Livestock Services, Dr Xolani Dlamini, under the supervision of the office of the Principal Secretary, Sydney Simelane, had to provide assistance where required for a business to be ready to transition to the new dispensation without serious negative effects on their operations and the industry.