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Breeders and traders of cattle in Addis Abeba will
soon be restricted from trading without licenses
issued from the Addis Abeba Trade & Industry Bureau,
sources disclosed to Fortune. Neither will
butcheries across the city continue to receive
supplies from those distributing meat without first
securing permits from city authorities.
City officials are writing directives that they
argue will put a check on sudden surges in the
prices of meat, putting middlemen out of business
and helping to enforce a proclamation issued by the
Ministry of Trade (MoT) last year.
The cattle trade has remained traditional and
unregulated for several centuries, despite local
authorities and officials from the tax authority
imposing their respective levees.
The market has a four-tier system, a study
commissioned by the Food & Agricultural Organisation
(FAO) a few years ago discovered. There are local
famers or rural traders who supply cattle to small
traders. The latter take cattle bought from
farmlands to terminals where large traders and
butchers buy, who then provide consumers from
slaughterhouses and slabs.
Nonetheless, the price of cattle in the capital has
been increasing in the past few years, where an ox
is now sold for as high as 20,000 Br, save holiday
price increments. While a kilogramme of meat may
reach anywhere from 90 Br to 100 Br, the lowest
priced market may offer it for 47 Br. City officials
blame the large traders and butchers for the surges
in prices.
“The public knows where to buy, so brokers should be
excluded from the supply chain,” said Mekonnen Seifu,
head of trading activities and expansion at the
Bureau.
The capital has four major places where cattle
trading takes place: Shegole, Akaki, Kera, and Kara,
of which the latter, on Asmara Road, is the largest.
There are about six gates where cattle come in from
different parts of the country: Kolfe Keranio (New
Ambo Road), Gefersa (Ambo Road), Entoto and Gulele (Bahir
Dar Road), Kotebe (Asmera Road), Akaki (Debre Zeit
Road), and Alem Gena (Jimma and Butajira roads).
Assefa Ababo, a butcher from Kotebe area in the
business of qercha, a traditional system of sharing
bovine meat bought collectively, agrees with the
Bureau.
Brokers speculate on prices, thus, compelling many
of his peers to travel as far as Sendafa, 34km
northeast of the capital, hoping to get cheaper
prices from farmers and small traders, Assefa
claimed.
“Licensing will regulate the market, and prices
will, rather, be determined by the traders who can
only put up the margins on their costs,” said Assefa.
Traders in this business for many years, without
being required licenses, are furious over the
prospect of the government’s hand in their business.
“I do not really know what having a license would
add for me, but I think it will manage the market
and adjust prices,” Bekele Weyesa, 38, a cattle
trader for the past 10 years, told Fortune. “I hope
it will be a directive that takes our hustle and
bustle into consideration while travelling.”
Traders like him bring cattle from Hararghe (the
greater Harar area), Wolayta and Borena, to supply
meat to the capital. Last year alone, 2.56 million
cattle were bought from Hararghe, while 1.13 million
were brought from Borena and 767,153 from Wolayta,
according to data from the Central Statistical
Agency (CSA).
These traders are subjected to seven Birr fees per
head to pass checkpoints, while paying an additional
20 Br per day for handlers.
Nonetheless, the directive applies for all traders,
including those who bring their cattle from distant
regions to the capital.
“We will issue licences to them and report back to
the regions they come from,” Mekonnen told Fortune.
The initiative by city authorities may be difficult
to enforce, given the traditional nature of the
cattle market in the city and the fact that most
people buy on the street as well as in places close
to their homes, according to Daniel Alemu,
coordinator of a breeders association established in
2007.
The directive is at an early stage of drafting by
experts within the Bureau’s Trade Linkage
Department. Once finalised, it will be tabled to the
Head of the Trade & Industry Bureau, Shisema
Gebresellassie, for signing.
Although experts in the department were hoping that
the directive would be signed off in the next one or
two weeks, it could be extended until next month,
for the Bureau chief is in training unrelated to the
case, according to sources within the Bureau. |
