[PHOTO/the-star.co.ke]
Government livestock officers have unearthed a scheme where Nairobi residents are being fed meat from dead and sick animals.
According to the officers, there is an elaborate cartel in the black market where meat inspectors are often threatened with death at slaughterhouses if they refuse to approve sick or dead animals for consumption.
“Vets are threatened to either stamp meat from dead animals on the farm or get hurt or they have to accept collusion,” says the report.
A survey of the livestock food chain in Nairobi conducted by a team of local and British livestock experts said that 90 per cent of sick and dead cows were consumed with 60 per cent of them going through the formal abattoirs.
The report findings by the Nairobi based International Livestock Research Institute, the University of Nairobi, University of London, and the University of Liverpool, were published on October 25 (Wednesday) in the Frontiers in Veterinary Science journal.
The survey was conducted in Dagoretti, Lang’ata, Njiru, Kasarani, Embakasi, Makadara and Thika west.