No meat shortage for Ramadan

Manama : Ashraf Al Saeed Amidst the holy month of Ramadan fast approaching, the Agriculture and Marine Resources Affairs (AMRA) has dismissed doubts regarding meat shortage.

The AMRA announced the availability of 36,295 live sheep and 2,955 cows in its sheds, revealing the plans to import more than 7,600 livestock from abroad in the coming days.

Stressing its keenness to meet the needs of local markets and to increase the supply of livestock and chilled meat, the government body said it has granted more approvals this time to facilitate procedures for imports.

“Teams of veterinarians at various air and land ports, as well as licensed slaughterhouses, are working throughout the day to check meat and monitor the markets, reassuring citizens and residents that the received shipments, whether from live livestock or chilled meat, have been subjected to  veterinary procedures to ensure their safety and validity.”

It has been learnt that the Animal Health and Control Department has stopped all veterinary doctors’ annual leaves and formed an emergency team to cover all working hours at all slaughterhouses to assure that only the highest quality of meat is supplied across meat markets in the Kingdom.

“There are also awareness programmes catering to the public against slaughtering in the open as part of our efforts to maintain public health and safety.”

Inspection committees have also been deployed to check violations in the sale of meat. 

Meanwhile, a number of livestock traders announced that they had joined the campaign of price reduction and control launched by the AMRA last year, stressing their ability to reduce the prices of meat in the interest of the consumer.