Large Portions Of Beef And Pork Seized, Buried In Calabar

Cross River State Tax Force on Development and Environmental Control has confisticated and buried a large quantity of beef and pork in three locations in Calabar as part of her efforts to ensure that butchers and meat sellers operate within acceptable hygiene standards in the preparation and vendoring of meat and beef to members of the public, www.calitown.com can reveal.

At the Anantigha and Ika Ika Oqua markets as well as the Edim Otop Pig Slaughter, Calabar, where the exercise took place, the tax force discovered that most of the beef was left in very unhealthy conditions and had to confisticate the beef to forestal the outbreak of any epidemic in the state. In the course of the confistication, www.calitown.com discovered that the handling of beef in the markets was appalling.

In Ika Ika Oqua market for instance, www.calitown.com could see portions of beef left on the floor and ‘tended’ by flies in the most unhygienic conditions. More stomach wrenching was the water used in washing the cow hide meant for sale in the market. While the sea of butchering activities have made the place marshy and extremely dirty, the butchers in the markets are undeterred and carry on doing business there without bating an eyelid.

Meanwhile, sources ii the tax force have also informed www.calitown.com that after conducting about 60 state-wide demolition of illegal structures in the first quarter of 2014, the tax force will further act and demolish more structures that contravene the town planning laws of the state. One source within the tax force decried the arbitrariness with which most developers and property owners in the state construct buildings in obvious contravention of the town planning laws of the state and stated that it was outrageous that the same persons cry foul when the demolition of such identified property takes place.

While the demolitions take place after a 21 days notice has been served, those who claim that their property may have been demolished without any notice “are telling a very big lie and look certain to want to undermine the activities of the Stanley Okputu led tax force”, as another source put it.