Veterinarians for Animal Welfare Zimbabwe (VAWZ) animal welfare officer Mrs Mel Hood told Sunday News that animal welfare organisations are engaging lawyers to stop Battlefront Investments’ donkey abattoir at Waterford in Bulawayo from starting operations.
Said Mrs Hood:
We are pursuing the legal routes. Obviously there are ways we can put this on hold until everybody is consulted. We need to have community consultations. I don’t believe the communities have been consulted and the whole picture put across, I think they have been told yes, we will pay you for your donkey but they haven’t been told in five or 10 years time when the donkey population is gone what are they going to be using? There is a whole range of issues that need addressing here and for the communities and the donkeys themselves we need to sort this out properly.
However Battlefront Investments’ managing director Mr Gareth Lumsden told the animal welfare groups that the project would go ahead as planned and implied that he is connected to Government officials. Said Lumsdel:
Basically ladies and gentlemen you are delaying the inevitable, those people who seem to be professing ignorance about it don’t want to be seen as condoning it for whatever reasons but when I say up to the Ministerial level there are several that know about it as far as the veterinary and other authorities.
More: Sunday News
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