Call for Govt to help with abattoir

AN abattoir facility worth K10 million is sitting idle outside Kundiawa town in Chimbu and needs Government intervention, according to a local leader.
Former Kerowagi MP Camillus Danguma said this during a visit to the area last week by officials from the commodities price support and agriculture intervention programme team from the Department of Agriculture and Livestock (DAL).
The complex was built with funds from the Government’s public investment programme (PIP) in 2013.
Danguma said the Government needed to intervene to invest in the abattoir as it had been idle for almost six years.
The abattoir facility was initiated by Danguma during his term as a member for Kerowagi in 2013.
He said the aim was to have a facility where farmers could provide livestock for processing and sale.
Danguma said the biggest problem farmers faced was sourcing markets for their produce.
He said having an abattoir was one way of providing opportunities for local farmers.
“This project was initiated to fill up the linkage to help those farmers who are struggling to source the markets,” Dangima said.
He said the abattoir could not become operational without government intervention.
Danguma said he was at home but had not given up on the project as he had initiated a piggery project that had 100 pigs mostly sows.
He said the abattoir had all the necessary equipment except a second waste dumping site and staff houses.
Danguma said the facility belonged to the Government, was built on State land and needed to be operational.
The unused abattoir complex had a slaughtering capacity of up to 10 cattle or 20 hogs or sheep per hour.
He said with the Government’s focus on agriculture, he was keen on seeing the abattoir serve livestock farmers in the district.