Firm dumps rotten chicks
In a typical case of killing two birds with one stone, a high-powered government inspection team comprising health and environmental officials last Thursday discovered that Central Poultry (CP) Feeds Limited routinely dumps rotten chickens near Kamuzu International Airport, polluting the environment.
Apparently, the team’s initial mission was to inspect CP Feeds and Sunseed Oil Limited premises over alleged poor management of their chicken and oil waste.
In the course of the mission, the team established that a big CP chicken farm in the area routinely dumps lorry-loads of small and fully grown chickens—which die on their own and are rotting—in nearby villages such as Chitukula and Njale.
“Our officers then zeroed in on the chicken-dumping issue first, as it was a life and death matter. Surely, how can people be enticed to eat chickens which have died on their own and are rotting? This is a great danger to human health,” said Dr. Aloysious Kamperewera, the environmental affairs director, in an interview yesterday.
He gave The Nation part of a written report his officers had compiled.
In part, the report indicates that some of the rotten chickens are ‘re-treated’, sold and may end up on the many roadside snack frying pans frequented by travellers.
Reads the report in part: “The evidence from the investigations revealed, and was conclusive, that Central Poultry is dumping dead chickens from the farm in various undesignated places in the surrounding villages.
“Villagers around these places are collecting dead chickens, either to eat or to sell. The malpractice poses a risk to both the environment and the health of the people in the surrounding villages and Lilongwe City. This is contrary to the Environmental Management Act and environment (waste management) regulations.”
The report adds that the dumping exercise is usually undertaken either at night or during daytime, with foul smells of the rotting carcasses disturbing the dumping sites in the village communities under Traditional Authority (T/A) (senior chiefs) Chitukula and Chimutu in Lilongwe.
“Central Poultry officials interviewed during the investigations confirmed that dead chickens were, indeed, dumped at Chitukula Village on 15th October 2014. But they were quick to put the blame on the villagers,” the report stated.
When it was time for the team to inspect the premises of CP Feeds and Sunseed Oil Limited, and also to face the company management for the illegal chicken dumping and the practice that endangers people’s lives, the officials faced a surprise roadblock. They were refused entry into the oil factory, whose waste has seeped into Nankhaka Stream for nearly a year.
A ‘river’ of the by-products of the vegetable oil waste has been flowing along the factory perimeter fence and inundated some villages downstream, polluting water sources and hampering vegetable-growing, according to a water expert’s report recently.
