Risky raw chicken sold on street

JON HOUZET and SIPHELELE NDZAMELA

MUNICIPAL health inspectors were called last Friday to stop the sale of raw chicken by hawkers in Main Street.

Local butchery owner Jackie Kriel alerted Ndlambe's health department when she noticed the hawkers selling their wares across the road from the butchery.

Kriel said the hawkers were regulars who were there every month-end.

UNHYGIENIC: Raw chicken was being sold out of bags and buckets in Main Street last Friday Picture: JON HOUZET

She called TotT when the health department took too long to respond.

"It's against health regulations," said Kriel. "That meat is lying there in the heat - it's not even in cooler boxes. There's a health hazard buying that meat and eating it."

She said as a butcher she was compelled to abide by health regulations, including that her meat be slaughtered at an abattoir.

She said she often had to turn away people who wanted her to sell her meat, as they had slaughtered the animal themselves.

"Those hawkers are acting as though they are above the law," said Kriel.

She said an official from the health department had promised to send a health inspector to tell the hawkers to remove their meat.

When TotT visited the scene we found several bags and buckets filled with raw chicken, but the hawkers said they had stopped selling the meat to appease the butcher.

They said no health inspector had spoken to them.

"We're just trying to make a living and we're only here for half a day," said one of the hawkers, who would not provide her name.

"I’m tired of going to loan sharks for money,” said another hawker. "We only target the pensioners so we only come here once a month.

"I don’t understand why that woman [Kriel] doesn’t want us here because she does not even sell chickens at her butchery.”

The hawkers said it would make their lives easier if pension payouts were resumed at Jauka Hall so they could sell their chickens there, "where we did not have any problems”.

In response to TotT’s queries, municipal spokesman Cecil Mbolekwa said: "The health inspector did attend to the call and the matter was rectified the same day.”

He would not elaborate further.