After the negative comments recorded on the Kingdom’s slaughterhouses, in official reports, due to the failure of most of them to meet the required health and safety standards, which was confirmed by the Supreme Council of Accounts, the new regional slaughterhouses department continues to be expanded, with the aim of modernizing the sector and ensuring that the slaughtering process and meat preparation are carried out in appropriate conditions.
Work began on Monday at the new municipal slaughterhouses in the Abu Kandil community on the outskirts of Salé, which were managed and exploited, as well as the exploitation of the meat transport facility to the Rabat-Salé-Temara Company, which will provide meat to the residents of the three cities.
The establishment of new regional slaughterhouses will end the old municipal slaughterhouses that suffer from many imbalances, as the President of the Rabat City Municipal Council issued a decision to close the municipal slaughterhouses located in the Akkari neighborhood in the Administrative Capital, as well as its facilities, so that the new regional slaughterhouses created in Abu Al-Kandil will be the only source of meat that It will be addressed to the residents of Rabat, Salé and Temara.
The decision issued by the mayor of Rabat stipulated prohibiting sacrifices and professional activities associated with municipal slaughterhouses in Rabat, and directing the aforementioned activities to the new slaughterhouses in Abu Al-Qandil.
The professionals appreciated the establishment of the new regional slaughterhouses, considering it to be in their interest and in the interest of the consumer. While workers in the sector feared losing their jobs.
In this context, Hicham Guabri, regional secretary for red meat wholesalers in the city of Casablanca, said that the new slaughterhouses “ensure the health safety of red meat, and that it reaches the consumer in good conditions.”
Jawabri added, in a statement to Hespress, that slaughtering the carcasses in the new regional slaughterhouses will also enable tracking the path of the meat, before the carcasses arrive at the slaughterhouse, as they must be approved by the competent authorities and the meat can be tracked after it leaves the slaughterhouse, highlighting that this “ “It creates comfort and reassurance for the consumer.”
The Supreme Council of Accounts had alerted, in a previous report, to deficiencies of a “recurring nature” related to hygiene and health conditions and management of slaughterhouses, considering that the deficiencies observed through monitoring missions negatively affect meat destined for consumption and constitute an obstacle to the modernization of the red meat production and distribution sector. Despite the efforts made by the state in this sector.
Although the new slaughterhouses will enable improving the conditions for preparing meat intended for human consumption, their establishment is accompanied by fears related, primarily, to the loss of their jobs by the professionals working in them who carry out the task of slaughtering and skinning, as well as fears of an increase in the cost of producing meat and thus increasing the price of selling it to the consumer.
A source from the local authorities sector told Hespress that closing traditional slaughterhouses “is a must, especially in major cities, and creating modern slaughterhouses that meet the standards required for the safety and health of meat,” noting that these slaughterhouses often take place within the framework of delegated measures, which results in an increase in Slaughtering and meat preparation expenses.
Regarding fears related to professionals in traditional slaughterhouses losing their jobs, Fattah Marchich, President of the Professional Association of Butchers of the Skhirat Prefecture – Temara, said that this fear is raised; But those in charge of the new regional slaughterhouses may find a solution for it, given that these slaughterhouses will operate full-time, which means employing a large number of workers, unlike traditional slaughterhouses that only operate three days a week, in the cities.
In a statement to Hespress, Marshish considered that the establishment of new regional massacres “is a positive issue, provided that the professionals who carry out the slaughtering and skinning process are not excluded, and who must be integrated into the new massacres.”
Morocco has 180 slaughterhouses in urban areas, and about 750 slaughterhouses in rural areas within weekly markets, enabling the production of more than 300,000 tons of red meat annually, according to official data presented by the Minister of the Interior in Parliament.
The Minister of Interior acknowledged that the Kingdom’s massacres have many imbalances. The most important of which are the obsolescence of infrastructure, the absence of the necessary hygiene and safety conditions, its lack of necessary equipment, the absence of maintenance, and the inappropriate methods of organizing and managing its work.
For his part, the head of the Professional Association of Butchers of the Skhirat-Temara Prefecture considered that “it is no longer acceptable to slaughter carcasses and prepare meat in traditional slaughterhouses; Because it lacks the necessary health conditions that enable quality meat to be delivered to consumers.”