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.]