Bolgatanga butchers drag feet over evacuation directive

Correspondence from the Upper East Region

Butchers in Bolgatanga are currently in a state of fret, following an order by the District Chief Executive, directing them to move to a newly built abattoir in a neighbouring community, Yorgo.

According to the District Chief Executive, their current place of operation did not meet the standard of an abattoir.

Some butchers expressed their frustrations with GhanaWeb’s Upper East Regional Correspondent, Sarah Dubure.

The Chairman of the Bolgatanga Butchers Association, Mr. Takuk Daa, lamented that the abattoir could only accommodate five of them, whereas they were over 200 in number.

He also raised the concern that Yorgo was far from there, and it was thus preposterous for one to buy a goat and carry it all the way there, and then come back to town to buy a cow and carry it there as well, for slaughtering.

“Yorgo is too far. You can’t come here and buy a goat and carry it all the way to Yorgo and then come back again to also buy a cow and take it there to slaughter. We will lose our work.” He said.

The Chairman also indicated that butchering was their sole source of livelihood, and the move was going to render them jobless. He added that they hadn’t made up their minds to move.

“We will lose our work, this is what we eat from. We haven’t decided to move.” He stressed.

A butcher, Mr. Mohammed Abdulai, pointed that the ‘cow market’ was far from Yorgo, and suggested they moved those they bought the cattle from along with them, to make their operations easy.

“The cow market is far from Yorgo, we are expecting that if they are able to move the animals’ suppliers so that we will all move together.” He suggested.

He added that they were not for trouble, but just needed the authorities to bear with them, by evacuating them along with their suppliers.

“We are not fighting with them. We just want them to understand if we are moving there, we should move with the suppliers. We alone, we can’t move to that place.” He explained.

Another butcher, Mr. Joseph Ziyaaba Yinkateeri, pointed that it would be cost-intensive and time-consuming, to buy a cow from town and carry it all the way to Yorgo.

“It is a great source of worry to us because one would have to board motoring at a cost of 50 cedis to Yorgo for his animals to be slaughtered and pay another 50 cedis for the meat to be finally conveyed to the market for sale. We will even end up starting work late.” He elaborated.

He also observed that the abattoir could only contain a few people out of the large numbers, and wondered the criteria they would use in determining those who would be stationed there.

“What they are doing will push most of the boys to stop the work. Only five people can be in that place at a time. So who are those going in and who are those staying back?” He quizzed.

Mr. Yinkateeri intimated that some of the butchers had as many as 50 boys working for them, and expressed the fear that the directive, when implemented, would breed a lot of thieves in the township, as a lot of people would become jobless.