Of Abattoirs and Sanitation Ministers

Sometime back, say around 1999, the powers that be, presumably parliamentarians, thought it wise to enact a law governing environmental issues in this country. And so it was that the National Enviroment Management Authority (NEMA) came to be and I think that the whole set up is generally a good idea.

So it was that NEMA, in carrying out its statutory duties, gave notice to 5 abattoirs in the Dagoretti area to get their act together or get shut down. Upon the expiry of the notice 3 months later, when not enough had been done, the 5 were shut down. Good no? I mean, if you had seen those places on the tele you may wish to sooner become a vegetarian than eat their meat ever again. Those guys wear long thick gum boots because they wade in calf deep filthy murky water (I don't want to imagine meat falling in and just being retrieved and sold at my local butchery). Then there are those scavenger birds that eat to their fill, piles of waste ... *shudder* yuck!

Anyhoo, the Dagoretti MP, who just so happens to be the Minister for Public Health and Sanitation, in a very public show visited these abattoirs and declared that NEMA ought not to have closed them down in the manner they did and should in fact have given them some time to clean up adding that a lamentable 10,000 people were rendered jobless by the closure.

I sit back, scratch my head and wonder. Madam Waziri, is it your stand that the Ministry of Public Health AND SANITATION would rather that Kenyans were poisoned by contaminated meat than 10,000 jobs be temporarily lost? Is it your stand that 3 months notice is not notice at all? Is it your stand that NEMA, which was quite frankly only doing its job, should watch itself in its zeal of undertaking its duties in your constituency?

Real bad show.