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Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Several butchers were arrested Thursday as Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) and Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) conducted a joint operation on butcheries across the city.
One Joseph Kayondo and Ssekabila were arrested after Public Health Inspectors found a concoction of chemicals being used, apparently to preserve the meat, at their butcheries in Ntinda. KCCA said the concoction of chemicals will be subjected to laboratory procedure to ascertain the components and its effects.
“On our routine inspection by our Public Health Teams, we found a number of butcheries in very insanitary conditions which we closed off and arrested the butchers in the practice of using a concoction of chemicals to preserve the meat. Intense inspections continue,” KCCA said online about the operation.
The joint operation was aimed to check the hygienic state of the meat and the butchers, structural standards of these butcheries find out the meat preservation mechanisms.
Several social media reports have in the past few months indicated that many butcheries in Kampala use chemicals like formalin to preserve meat. Most butcheries lack proper cold storage facilities to preserve meat and supervision of hygiene conditions rare.
Kampala Butcheries
A January 2015 study on “Sanitation and hygiene status of butcheries in Kampala district, Uganda” by
Bernadette Basuta Mirembe of Ndejje University, Rawlance Ndejjo and David Musoke of Makerere University, reveals that the sanitation and hygiene status of butcheries in Kampala district is very poor.
“Majority 43 (58.9%) of the butcheries lacked a standard fly screen and fly infestation was high (more than 5 flies estimated) in 57 (78.1%) of them. Ventilation was inadequate in 42 (57.5%) of the butcheries. None of the butcheries had running water within their premises,” the report said.
The study added that “Only 35 (47.9%) of the butcheries had refrigerators for storage of meat of which 31 (88.6%) were in good condition. However, most of the butcheries shared the refrigerators with retail shops hence meat was kept with other commodities such as beverage, water and other ready-to-eat foods.
The study concluded that ” sanitation and hygiene status of the butcheries was generally poor as most of them did not meet the sanitary requirements for operation as stipulated in the Public Health (Meat) Rules [6].”
Kcc Meat Ordinance,2006 by The Independent Magazine on Scribd
Sanitation and Hygiene Status of Butcheries in Kampala District Uganda by The Independent Magazine on Scribd
