Order!
Just before we proceed, can I ask all of you just to check on your cellphones to see if they are indeed off. Let us make sure our cellphones are off.
Mr Chairman, it is a pleasure to commend to the Council the Meat Safety Bill which is before the House. I do regard this as quite an important Bill. The factors which normally drive agricultural policy in most of the countries of the world, and specifically in South Africa, are all present in this Bill before us, and perhaps one could look at them to get the broader context within which this Bill is functioning.
Firstly, in a country like South Africa we have a special driving factor and that is, of course, transformation and with it land reform, and transformational aspects are present in this Bill. The second factor which drives agricultural policy and legislation like this is, of course, internal budgetary pressures. Agricultural budgets all over the world, and even more so in South Africa, are under extreme budgetary pressure at the moment. The third factor I would like to mention is the challenges of growth in all sectors of agriculture, and also in this regard this Bill, we hope, will be positive for agricultural growth.
Another factor is the influence of agricultural globalism, with reference to the commitments and rules which we have under the World Trade Organisation. That is of extreme importance with regard to meat production, because of the sanitary and phytosanitary measures in that regard. Let me just mention the one that we all know about, and that is the factor of pressure from farming sectors and communities and their lobbies which have an influence on agricultural policy. But the one which is of the utmost importance, which perhaps is the basic driving force of this Bill before us, is the growing pressure from consumer groups and environmental groups over, firstly, the safety of food and, secondly, the sustainability of present agricultural patterns. That is the one which I would like to address in most of what I am going to say this evening.
What we have in this Bill is a group of measures which seek to promote meat safety and the safety of animal products. Of course, animal products are those obtained from the carcass, other than the meat, as defined in the Bill. The measures are there to establish and maintain essential national standards with regard to meat and other animal products and to regulate the importation and exportation, and to establish meat safety schemes.
We believe that the main object of the Bill, which is why this Bill comes before members as a section 76 Bill, is to protect consumers in so far as the consumption of meat is concerned. That is why it is called the Meat Safety Bill. In order to accomplish this, the Bill also seeks to establish and maintain essential national standards in respect of abattoirs. Consumer protection is a functional area of concurrent national and provincial legislative competence, as listed in Schedule 4 of the Constitution, as members know. That is why we deal with it in terms of the procedure described by section 76. Abattoirs, as hon members know, are listed in Schedule 5 of the Constitution.
Order! Members, please converse softly.
Chairperson, with regard especially to the international standards that have to be maintained and the general common economic market in South Africa, we have to maintain essential national standards, and that is why we are here before the members.
Consumer protection is the main aim, as I was saying. In terms of section 27 of the Constitution of South Africa, everyone has the right to have access to ``sufficient food''. ``Sufficient food'' is definitely more than enough food, because it includes enough food. However, ``sufficient food'' also has a qualitative aspect to it. Mostly that is about the objects for which the food is being used, and that is for human health. In that regard, we have a constitutional imperative to see to it, from the side of the state, that this right to safe food is being exercised. Throughout much of the world, an increasing number of consumers and most governments are becoming aware of food quality and safety issues, and are realising the need to be selective about the foods people eat. It is now common for consumers to demand that governments take legislative action to ensure that only safe food of acceptable quality is sold, and that the risk of food- borne health hazards is minimised.
In other words, no one can deny that food is a very important item on political agendas all over the world. It is there - an entity on the political agendas. In fact, governments are extremely conscious of the political consequences which they may expect if they fail to heed consumers' concerns regarding the food they eat. In other words, universally, there is an acknowledgement of the right that people have of expecting that the food they eat is safe, and is of a good quality and suitable for consumption. In actual fact, in terms of the United Nations guidelines of 1985 on consumer protection, governments should take into account the needs of all consumers for food security.
We all know how bad it becomes when something goes wrong with food. For example, I have recently had experience of this because I was involved in the decision on whether to lift the ban on imports of British beef to South Africa. If one thinks about what happened in Britain, where almost 90 people died and millions of pounds worth of cattle had to be destroyed, people all over the world are asking the question: What goes into the animal whose meat we are going to eat?
I must say that with the recent incidence of foot-and-mouth disease, which we are still experiencing, there were some averments which cannot be proven because it is extremely difficult to do so. But there were some deductions made to the effect that foot-and-mouth disease occurred in this country in KwaZulu-Natal because of some swill, that is, products left over from food and other refuse which came from ships and was fed to pigs. Whether that is true or not, the point of concern is this: Something was perhaps eaten by the pigs. People are very concerned, because this creates the public fear of whether they are really safe from what goes into the animals whose meat they are going to eat.
I must say I am convinced that in South Africa we must look at this position carefully. It does not help to say that we are a developing country, therefore we can let go. That is actually a racist statement because one is then saying that only people who are rich can afford safe food, by ensuring that they buy from an important place. I think we have a duty to look after the safety of all our people's food, especially meat. The main thing is that we have to investigate what is happening. We have to look at, for example, growth hormones. They are not allowed in Europe and there is a big battle going on about them in America. Some antibiotics are used quite explicitly for accelerated growth and to prevent diseases.
Members will see, in the fine print of the Bill, that we talk about residues when we discuss meat safety. Those residues actually refer to what is left over. For example, if one has given medicine to an animal, the residue can be tested, and that will also play a role in the Bill.
In general, this whole subject of meat safety is only part of food health. I can tell the hon delegates that in South Africa we have to work towards a general national food safety agency. Regarding a food safety agency, we have mechanisms at present and this issue is being dealt with by the Department of Health and the Department of Agriculture. I must say there is good co-operation between the two departments. However, if one really wants to see that nothing goes wrong - and things can go terribly wrong if they go wrong, for example, are we really sure that milk is safe in this country and can our municipalities handle this - then we must start looking at the matter.
I am saying that, pertaining to consumers' concerns regarding food and in this case meat safety, we think we can do something in close co-operation with provinces because this is an intergovernmental system. The provinces will implement the necessary steps through the very good system of intergovernmental relations created by this Bill. I think that we are going to have a system in which the consumers' concerns will be addressed.
What has happened in the world is that more and more information about food- related matters has become available. There was a time when people were only concerned about the visibles, such as whether food is underweight, whether the contents are correct, size variations, misleading labelling and poor quality. But now the consumers are concerned about the invisibles: the health hazards that cannot be seen, smelt or tasted, such as micro- organisms, pesticide residues, environmental contaminants and food additives.
Both nationally and internationally there is growing pressure on governments to protect all our communities from poor-quality and hazardous foods. I think that what this Meat Safety Bill is going to do is to make it impossible for people who live in impoverished areas to be mistreated through some hazardous meat being off-loaded in their areas. I feel very strongly about this. There is no way that people can regard some areas as places where one can get rid of meat in an uncontrolled fashion.
When we embarked on the deregulation of agriculture in South Africa, it went very quickly. Some people have the impression that the deregulation of the market is now a situation of lawlessness. That is a completely wrong impression. We must send the message that that is not going to happen in South Africa. There is no way that the state's role and duty of care for controlling what must be controlled, regulating what must be regulated, will not be done. It is true that we are under budgetary constraints. But the day that one cannot export ostrich meat any more because one does not have enough veterinarians to check every ostrich that is slaughtered, one will be losing money by not putting money there. Sometimes one must spend money to make money. That is the way we are going to do it. We must build a lot.
We are not going to allow people to bring in things, for example swill from a ship, where one must have a permit from the Department of Agriculture and when such an item should have been destroyed in terms of environmental legislation. We are not going to allow that type of a thing. I want to send a strong message about that. The state is going to do its duty, as far as we are capable of doing it. We are going to strengthen veterinary science and veterinary practices in this country. We have to do that. We cannot allow things to just go down.
Because it is late in the evening, I will, perhaps, go into more detail about the Bill after the members have spoken and given an indication of what areas of the Bill are of special concern to them. [Applause.]
Chairperson, hon Deputy Minister, special delegates from provinces and hon members, two years ago, Cape Town meat merchants were at the centre of a health row after imported kangaroo meat, which had been blamed for a number of cases of bacterial disease in Australia, had gone on sale in the city. Last year, about 500 children who were due to take part in the opening of the All Africa Games in Johannesburg fell ill with food poisoning. Doctors blamed the food poisoning on bad meat that was served at afternoon rehearsals. Last month, some farmers in KwaZulu-Natal were faced with serious problems when foot-and-mouth disease was identified among their livestock.
On 8 April 1993 the European Union banned imports of livestock, meat, milk and dairy products from 18 Central and Eastern European countries after cases of foot-and-mouth disease were reported in northern Italy. The Italians claimed that the disease was found in cattle shipped from the former Soviet Union through either Slovenia or Croatia. Under European law, if proof exists that a country has livestock that is infected with foot-and- mouth disease, import barriers can legally keep those animals from spreading their disease to the importing countries. These are just some of the reported incidents that show the risks to which consumers are exposed if there are no proper checks of the quality of meat products available for public consumption.
Since many people afflicted with food-borne illnesses assume that they have flu and do not visit the doctor, cases of meat-related illnesses tend to be underreported. The available information on such illnesses therefore represents only a fraction of the total number that occur. The fact that meat-related illnesses are underreported does not mean that the problem is not serious. Although estimates as to the prevalence and growth of illnesses attributable to unsafe meat in South Africa are difficult to assess, we cannot deny the fact that it is a reality. It is a reality experienced mostly by poor and marginalised people with lowered immunity due to HIV/Aids, pregnant women and their foetuses, young children, the elderly, the homeless, farmworkers and others of low socioeconomic status. The effects suffered by these marginalised groups can range from relatively minor discomfort to more serious symptoms and manifestations such as fever, diarrhoea, dehydration and even death.
In addition to the human suffering caused by unsafe meat and food-borne diseases, substantial economic costs are involved. They affect both tourism and trade. Already, some countries have placed a ban on the import of South African meat products after the recent outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in KwaZulu-Natal. This places an enormous financial burden on farmers who breed livestock for export purposes. It also reduces state income which is derived from the export of those meat products. It further places an enormous burden on the country's health care system through increased hospitalisation costs. This does not even take into account the total social and medical burden placed on society by the chronic and often lifelong consequences of unsafe meat and food-borne illnesses.
Our own system for identifying and preventing illnesses resulting from unsafe meat is found in the Abattoir Hygiene Act. This Act proved to be inadequate to properly identify, track and prevent meat-related illnesses and to prevent future cases from occurring. Its primary focus was on measures aimed at promoting the hygienic slaughter of animals in abattoirs, with very little emphasis on the safety of the end products leaving the abattoirs and destined for public consumption.
This approach is primitive, compared to the international trends which are aimed at making sure that best management practices are used through every step of meat processing, from inspection of livestock before slaughter, right to the end product leaving the processing plant.
The international approach is based on the hazard analysis and critical control points standards which were developed by the American space agency, Nasa, to ensure the safety of food prepared for astronauts.
Its focus is on ensuring that food contamination risks are avoided in the processing plant and that those steps are documented. It requires meat processors to examine their procedures, determine which procedures have the potential to contaminate meat, and then explain in detail how they avoid contamination at those points.
The Meat Safety Bill seeks to achieve a similar objective. It envisages the appointment of a national executive officer who will be entrusted with the monitoring of essential national standards which will apply to all abattoirs.
These national standards provide for, among others things, the keeping of records relating to the examination and inspection of animals prior to and after slaughter; the fact that meat may only be removed from abattoirs if it is duly marked and the method of removal poses no risk to the public; the detection and monitoring of any specified substances and residues in meat products, in accordance with prescribed methods; and the fact that the abattoir must be managed in accordance with a prescribed hygiene management and evaluation system.
I respectfully submit that the Meat Safety Bill will bring our own practices in line with the international approach and will ensure that our people enjoy a healthy way of life. For this reason, the ANC wishes to add its voice in support of this Bill. [Applause.]
Chairperson, hon Deputy Minister and hon members, the ANC in the province of the Eastern Cape unconditionally supports this monumental piece of legislation which seeks to resolve disparities between meat safety standards for urban and more affluent areas with expensive abattoirs, on the one hand, and those for rural and poor communities in which such facilities do not exist, on the other hand.
The current Act, the Abattoir Hygiene Act of 1992, has a rigid and selective approach which makes access to service difficult for the majority and impossible for the rural communities of South Africa.
The Bill wants to do away with considerations of cost as a determining factor in obtaining safe meat, cost which was used as a tool to compromise poorer communities in their health and wellbeing because they could not afford to pay for these services.
The injustice of the past made us ignorant with regard to meat inspection, more especially in rural areas.
Babesakuthi abantu basezilalini xa kuxhelwe inkomo okanye igusha bakuthabathe oko ngathi baqinisekile ukuba loo nyama ayinazintsholongwane, bayitye. Kodwa eyona nto yayiba ngumnqa kukuba babesakuthi xa inkomo okanye igusha ithe yazifela, indlela ababeyivavanya ngayo ukuba ilungele ukutyiwa yayikukuba bathabathe igaqa lenyama baliphosele inja. Ibiya kuthi ke ukuba loo nja ithe ayafa baqiniseke ukuba inyama leyo ingatyiwa. Kodwa ke ukuba ithe inja leyo yafa, babesazi ukuba basengozini. (Translation of Xhosa paragraph follows.)
[In the rural villages, when a cow or sheep was slaughtered, it used to be assumed that its hygienic status was good, that is, it was safe for people to eat the meat. But what is amazing is that if that animal's cause of death was unknown, to ensure that it was safe for human consumption, a piece would be thrown to a dog. If the dog did not drop dead, people would be sure that it was safe for them to eat the meat. But if the dog died, they would know that to eat the meat would be a risk and, therefore, pose danger to their lives.]
This Bill addresses the imbalance of expensive abattoirs by shifting the focus to the safety of the end product, rather than costly structures which are only accessible to deeper pockets. All consumers, urban and rural, rich and poor, will benefit in view of the fact that meat for consumption could affect human and animal health. One of the measures introduced by this Bill, which is welcomed by our rural communities, is that an opportunity will exist for abattoirs to be set up as small businesses, and will be able to provide a more user-friendly system. Most of the big abattoirs are in metropolitan areas, which results in a serious shortage of proper slaughtering facilities in rural areas.
Undoubtedly, this accommodates the needs of our diverse society and stimulates a collective commitment to establish a culture of hygiene and meat safety awareness, as the Bill is trying to establish a meat safety concept rather than just abattoir hygiene, as is currently the case.
One of the important principles proposed in the Bill is the provision for the assignment to agencies and nongovernmental organisations of meat inspection services. The advantage of using agencies outside Government is that the state will be able to perform its statutory functions by harnessing capacity in the meat industry for the implementation of legislation, without having to expand the public services, and it will also help to prevent the utilisation of scarce resources within the state to deliver services that can be delivered just as efficiently by nongovernmental organisations.
Due to the lack of formally qualified persons and the fact that meat inspectors are not available throughout the country, especially in rural areas, this Bill makes provision for duly qualified and authorised persons to perform functions in terms of this Bill.
This could be utilised as an opportunity to train persons with the necessary potential to perform such functions, especially in areas with shortages of qualified persons. [Applause.]
Chairperson, hon Deputy Minister and the House, thank you for the warm welcome.
Allow me to add that the introduction of the Meat Safety Bill is yet another development in the extension of opportunities for the broader South African community to understand the importance and implications of their actions in the handling of food in general, and meat in particular.
The existing legislation, in the form of the Abattoir Hygiene Act of 1992, restricts itself to measures which could never have allowed the general populace to develop a culture of optimal hygienic standards in the handling of meat.
The fact that we have become international participants in the global trade market requires vigilance of the kind that will not make it difficult for us to answer questions which may arise as a result of meat which might be contaminated, either inside the country or coming from outside the borders of our country. Incidents of animal sickness and failure or success in handling these can make or break the country's international trade opportunities.
We have numerous examples of animal sicknesses which would have a direct or indirect association with the subject of our discussion today. Mad cow disease in Britain is one recent case in point. In our own country, as we are speaking today, the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease has caused a panic, both locally and internationally.
Despite the informed and professional advice that the disease did not or would not be transmitted between animals and human beings, our local traders and consumers did not believe us. Measures such as quarantine and even the culling of animals in affected areas did not allay the anxieties of some of our neighbours in the region. We are, however, happy that the situation in KwaZulu-Natal was successfully contained and did not spill over into other areas of the province, or other provinces for that matter.
We are already enjoying the dividends of our measures with Namibia's lifting of the bans on our export of meat and meat products so affected. We must thank the provincial department under MEC Singh for their tireless work, the national department for their guidance and leadership and the farmers who sacrificed their animals to save the nation. The implications of not handling, or of being perceived not to be handling, one's food or food products safely go beyond trade matters. As a meat safety ban suggests, health risks can become real if appropriate precautionary measures are ignored.
The existing legislation's narrow focus on abattoirs and its costly insistence on infrastructure of a certain type do not necessarily translate into concomitant health outcomes. The introduction of this legislation is not just about animals, but also about the prevention of meat-related diseases among humans, thus contributing to the overall health system of our country.
This Bill has wide-ranging and positive implications for environmental management and protection. The appointment, purpose and choice of provincial executive officers are testimony to this, in that these persons will be knowledgeable in public health matters. This will come in handy in the hygienic management of establishments, animals and the environment. It also addresses the handling of animal wastes in a new way, in a completely different way from the current legislation. Certain hardships experienced under the current arrangements are addressed by this Bill. Some of the hardships and possible solutions in this Bill are, firstly, the introduction of schemes for the promotion of communal slaughter facilities, and secondly, the granting of exemptions by the Minister to abattoirs and slaughter facilities and to categories and groups of persons and owners.
In conclusion, and coming to the specifics about the North West province's concerns, I wish to report that the province has no substantive or principled objection to the Bill save for the detail around clause 23, which assigns or delegates powers to the provincial executive officers. According to the province, more detail should have been given with regard to assignment of powers to members of the executive council in a province for the latter to have necessary powers over the executive officers. We trust that that clarity will either be made or will emerge in the end, or that provision will be made to cater for the concern in other ways. This is intended to tighten ... [Interjections.]
Order! Hon MEC, you have less than a minute to complete your speech.
I was going to speak for less than five seconds more. [Laughter.]
Order! Do so, hon