South Africans are renowned carnivores, but is the meat they are eating safe?
This is the conundrum consumers face, with the National Federation of Meat Traders saying on Tuesday that the inability of the government to promulgate regulations relating to meat safety is a serious concern to the meat industry.
”The industry is in complete shambles following the deregulation of the meat industry and safety issues have been compounded by the lack of regulations to enforce the Meat Safety Act of 2000,” said Eddie Bielovich, chairperson of the federation.
According to Bielovich there are not enough health inspectors to check the quality of meat around the country.
”The mushrooming of abattoirs is another area of concern, because consumers now don’t know where carcasses and meat come from,” he said.
But Western Cape director of veterinary services, Dr Gideon Brückner, while agreeing that the lack of regulations is a ”critical” matter hampering the full use of enabling initiatives in the new Act, said the overall picture is not as bleak as Bielovich painted.
Brückner said the new Act allows the state to appoint ”assignees” to help health inspectors do their work.
”They could, for example, complement the existing scarce resources to create food safety awareness in the informal sector of slaughtering and selling of meat. However, no national or provincial assignees have been appointed to date as the operational standards for assignees need to prescribed by regulation,” he said.
Currently private veterinarians employed on a contractual basis and certain companies are being used to perform meat safety checks.
He said there are two systems to be monitored — the formal sector with ”controlled meat” and the informal sector with ”uncontrolled meat”.
He said in the controlled sector, animals are inspected for diseases before slaughter at an approved abattoir. After slaughter, a primary meat inspector inspects the meat, and if carcasses are to be withheld, then a secondary meat inspection has to be performed by vets.
”The question is about harmonising standards in the industry, and the regulations will enhance the intent of the Meat Safety Act,” he said.
Brückner said regulations alone can not enforce meat safety, but have to be augmented with awareness programmes to alert people to the danger of eating uninspected meat.
He said illness and even death could occur if people eat meat from animals with transmissible diseases. In Zimbabwe in 2001 several people died after eating meat from infected carcasses.
”There are several other important diseases in animals such as rabies, tuberculosis and Congo fever that could be transmitted to humans through ingestion of infected carcasses,” he said.
He said exposure to unsafe and unhealthy meat could only be prevented by ensuring that only meat slaughtered and inspected at an approved abattoir is bought for consumption.
Major retailers are compelled to buy meat only from approved abattoirs, with non-registered abattoirs — on smallholdings, for example — facing prosecution if found selling meat to consumers.
Meanwhile, the Department of Agriculture and Land Affairs said the new Act provides for the maintaining of the previous safety regulations under the Abattoir Act of 1992.
The department said draft regulations are being considered by their legal department for final comment. No time frame has been given before the draft regulations go to Parliament and are gazetted to come into effect. — Sapa