Buea Council regulates beef transportation

In order to preempt any epidemic from meat exposure, the Buea Council has taken a new measure to halt beef transportation in open air. The measure was announced recently, in a statement to local news houses.

To sustain the new order, the Ministry of Livestock, Fisheries and Animal Industries provided a beef van to improve the handling of meat from slaughter houses to sale points in Buea, capital of the South West Region.

The van begins its daily rounds from 6:30 am and transports meat from the public slaughter houses in Buea Town and Muea to the 30 sale points spread across the city. Tabi Joseph, Officer in charge of Meat Control with the Buea Council, revealed that 1,500 FCFA is the cost of transporting one slaughtered cow to any sale point in the city.

"Unfortunately, butchers are still using the services of porters, motorcycles and personal cars to transport meat in exposed and doubtful sanitary conditions," he lamented.

Tabi continued that even those who use the meat van complain of the cost, most often threatening to pay below the stated amount. "Any person found transporting meat without the services of the Buea Council Meat van will have their meat, bike and car impounded, with heavy financial fines imposed," he warned.

Also, the Council source stipulated that butchers handling meat poorly would be suspended from practising their trade for a period to be decided by the council.

Meanwhile, many butchers have acclaimed the new measure, although a handful still think that the new dispensation hampers competitiveness as each of them used to rush their meat to the market as quickly as they could without having to wait for the van to load a certain quantity before taking off.

In the present dispensation, all meat is loaded into the van at the slaughter house and offloaded at the sale-point with everybody present, which is added security.

In two other separate communiqués, the Mayor prohibited the clandestine transport of bread and dairy products. Buea Council has also warned owners of abandoned bushy plots serving as hideouts for thieves that they would be cleared by the Buea Council at the cost of landlords.