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We must regulate pork dealers in Fort Portal - Mayor

Fort Portal, a city located in the Western Region of Uganda, is registering all its pork establishments in a bid to regulate their standards.

Pork Joints to be regulated

Fort Portal’s central division council has started registering all pork joints in the central business area of the city.

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However, the council’s decision to register pork establishments has led to many a pork dealer thinking they may be evicted from the city.

The move to register pork establishments began during a recent central division council meeting.

In this meeting, councillors asked the mayor central division Fort Portal, Richard Muhumuza, to register all pork dealers.

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In spite of the expressed fears of pork dealers, Muhumuza said the move was normal and not intended to upset the many pork businesses in the city.

We are not intending to evict the pork dealers, but we need to regulate their business within the town and that was a council decision,” Muhumuza revealed.

In the context of this decision, pork dealers in the city are demanding for the establishment of an abattoir for pigs.

An abattoir carries out the slaughter of animals and meat processing. By the time animals have gone through this slaughterhouse, they have been reduced to carcasses, bones, offal, blood and skin.

The pork dealers say this is essential in view of the fact that there are hundreds of pork establishments within the central business area and yet there is no abattoir to cater for such a vast number.

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Again, the pork dealers say the absence of an abattoir compromises the quality of the pork sold to the public and this in turn reduces its value and its price. As a result, the pork dealers get less money on their investment. Something, they noted, is bad for business.

Similarly, many residents of Fort Portal believe that gazetting an abattoir for pigs will not only improve the quality of the pork, but will also generate revenue for the municipality.

This will improve the city’s infrastructure and service deliveries, especially in view of Fort Portal having been labelled a “Tourism City of Uganda.”

It earned this reputation because, along with Bunyangabu district, because it is home to 52 crater lakes.

The crater lakes help in rain formation thereby making the fertile soils in the district ideal for farming.

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The residents of Fort Portal have also welcomed the regulation of the pork establishments, agreeing that such a move will not only improve the quality of the pork but will also improve upon its safety.

It is noted by the public, however, that the pork dealers need to be sensitised on the issue of regulation or many of them shall resist the move.

This would not be the first time.

In 2012, owners of pork establishments as well as butcheries in Fort Portal defied a quarantine imposed on the movement of pigs, and on the sale and consumption of pork.

This quarantine was imposed by the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries following an outbreak of the African swine fever.

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At the time, 200 pigs died in Lyamabwa and Kahondo in Kisomoro subcounty and in some parts of Kibiito town council.

In the wake of this wave of deaths, Fort Portal’s district veterinary department vowed to close all pork joints and butcheries.

All those who went against the quarantine were threatened with prison terms.

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