Health Alert-Unhygienic State of the Suame Kotoko Abattoir
Meat sellers at Suame Kotoko a suburb of Kumasi in the Ashanti regional capital are demanding for an improved slaughter house to enhance the sale of hygienic meat to customers.
The meat sellers bemoaned the unhygienic state of the abattoir which they operate from stating that it is seriously affecting their businesses and thereby calling for mediate assistance from central government.
Sixty ( 60) ruminants are slaughtered at the Suame Kotoko abattoir but the facility is in a sorry state in view of the fact that it cannot boast of a single meat dressing equipment as compared to the Kumasi main abattoir.
In an interview with the chief butcher Esam Asazamale –Kintaba he expressed worry over their current predicament. ‘We are able to slaughter about 50 -60 goats, sheep and sometimes two cows in a day but the unhygienic nature of the place makes it difficult to slaughter more than this number’.
He disclosed that they had to contain its deplorable state for years despite appeals to various stakeholders for support. ‘Our plea to the member of parliament for Suame, Hon.Osei Kyei -Mensah Bonsu, Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA), and the assemblyman for the area to help us build an improved facility has fallen on deaf ears’.
‘We are really suffering here, we are not meddling in politics, we don’t care which government is in power, so save us. We don’t have money to build one ourselves, if we had money, we would have built it ourselves,’
Asazamale-Kintaba stressed that it becomes difficult to operate when it rains, saying work ceases whenever it rains due to the poor nature of the abattoir.
They are appealed to government to come to their aid to build a proper abattoir for them, anticipating that it will go a long way to help the country’s economy.
