Butcheries: The pinch after barbeque ban

CALISTUS KOLANTSHO
Correspondent | Friday October 8, 2010 00:00

The ban drove some of the businesses to the wall.

Most butcheries Mmegi visited this week were showing little life, with only a few pieces of meat in trays. An employee of Tsenang Butchery and Fresh Produce in Leseding Ward, Tirelo Bakani, said the cooked meat and barbeque ban has killed their business.

'This butchery used to be one of the busiest in town with nine employees,' she said. 'It is like a haunted place today. The management was forced to retrench five employees.

The manager was contemplating retrenching again recently. He has no choice because there is no business. Braai was the backbone of these butcheries.'

The remaining employees live in fear of losing their jobs and have started looking for openings elsewhere, which is almost certainly a wild goose chase in Selebi-Phikwe.  Bakani is also scared that she too could lose her job, but she has a small child.

They used to sell four carcasses a week, but since the ban was imposed, they sell only one carcass a week. The situation does not only affect them; the farmers that they used to buy cattle from are also complaining because they have no market.

Bakani said the management was also forced to add items like sweets, canned pilchards, canned beans, soup powders and potato chips to supplement income.

The Managing Director of Bosela Pele Butchery and Bar, Sekai Jacob, could not find the right words to describe the bad situation that his business is in. 'We approached the Selebi-Phikwe Town Council as the Butchery Owners Association to discuss ways of relaxing the ban, but the meeting did not yield any positive results,' Jacob said with palpable dejection.

'The situation is bad and there is no way out of it until something is done about the ban. The Town Clerk simply told us that we were not licensed to provide braais in our butcheries.'

He explained that the main reason for introducing braais in their butcheries was to broaden their sales lines and to provide an affordable lunch to their customers, especially the unemployed who cannot afford to buy meals from expensive restaurants.

While Jacob used to sell one-and-a-half carcasses a day, he is lucky to sell a carcass today.

The situation was not helped when restaurant owners accused them of 'butchering' their businesses by taking their customers. Jacob said the introduction of the 30 percent alcohol levy added salt to the wound.

In the end, he also was forced to retrench staff. He struggles to pay the remaining employees who stay only because they have nowhere else to go.

'I also have to pay rent and electricity and water bills,' he said. 'Before the alcohol levy, I could cash P7, 500 at month-end weekends but at the moment, I cannot make P2 000.. I have to pay P4, 500 for rent and I am fortunate because the landlord did not increase it after VAT was increased.'Jacob observed that the economy of Selebi-Phikwe could not grow because of the harsh conditions that businesses are operating in. He suggested that the government should find a way of either allowing bars to operate with the old hours or to let butcheries to continue braaing in order to avoid a complete shutdown of more businesses.

'If the council says we are not licensed to braai, then they must give us the licences,' he snapped.

Responding to the complaints, Selebi-Phikwe Town Clerk, Kutlwano Matenge, explained that the council did not make laws but simply enforced them.

He said the braai ban was based on the Trade Act and other laws. 'It is the Ministry of Trade and Industry that came up with that law, not us,' Matenge said. 'We are simply implementing it.'

Matenge said when they issue butchery owners with licences, they expect them to comply with the conditions. He pointed out that butcheries are fresh produce sellers hence they cannot sell cooked meat or braai.

By doing so, butcheries were also violating the Public Health Act. Matenge said they have advised butchery owners to apply for restaurant licences if they want to sell barbeques or cooked meat on their premises. 'They are allowed to have two licences in one business,' he said.