September 17, 2013
Malaysia's poultry traders protest against wet market ban
Due to a recent announcement of a ban on wet markets for the sale of poultry meat, traders at several wet markets in Ipoh, Malaysia are furious and up in arms against the government's move.
Calling it ridiculous, they said the move would only cost them more time and money to get their poultry slaughtered.
Mohd Ali Zainon, who has been operating a stall selling chicken meat at the Jelapang wet market for the past 17 years, said the traders, would not adhere to the ban and fight for their rights.
Mohd Ali explained that the traders would have to go first to a location to get the chicken slaughtered, which would involve a cost, and also customers would not buy chicken that was not fresh.
He even said that at the slaughterhouses, there was no guarantee that the chicken would be slaughtered the halal way because foreigners are hired to do the job.
Mohd Ali also said that despite the slaughter house's minimum charge of MYR0.50/chicken (US$0.15), with 200 chickens/day would be about MYR3,000/month (US$920) which would be a lot of difference to them to settle their financial obligations.
"And what happens to our investments of buying boilers and processing machinery which cost about MYR15,000 (US$4,600)," said the furious trader.
He added if the government came up with the excuse that the move was to avoid infectious diseases caused by slaughtering activities, "then he and the rest of the traders would have been dead a long time ago." He also suggested that the Jelapang market be converted to be at par with the markets in Britain, US and other developed countries.
Recently, the National Council for Local Government announced the ban to avoid infectious diseases caused by slaughtering activities, besides minimising the number of cockroaches, flies and rats in the markets. The move was also to ensure that poultry was slaughtered in accordance to the guidelines set by the Islamic Development Department (Jakim) and state Islamic religious councils.
