Tanzania to Benefit From $19.7m ADB Loan to SADC Nations

Tanzania is among five member states of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to benefit from a grant totaling $19.7 million extended by the African Development Bank (ADB) in support of animal disease control. The grant will be disbursed over a period of five years. The protocol agreement has been signed by the executive secretary of SADC, Dr Thomãz Augusto Salomão and the vice president of the African Development Bank Group, Mrs Zeinab Bashir El Bakri. The agreements main objective is to reduce the incidence of transboundary animal diseases (TAD).

The SADC Secretariat will be the executing agency for the project, which will be implemented in Angola, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia, and will aim to increase the capacity of these member states to export livestock and livestock products.

The project will specifically bolster surveillance and control of TADs, especially in border areas, and build networking and information sharing among the participating member states. Tanzania ranks the third in Africa in terms of cattle population after Ethiopia, which has 31 million cattle and Sudan, which has 30 million cattle. The estimated livestock population amounts to 18.5 million cattle, 13.1 million goats, 3.6 million sheep and 30 million indigenous poultry, among other species.

But with lack of meat packaging plants, poor strategies of commercialisation of the sector, and only two abattoirs, the economic contribution of the abundant livestock is insignificant. Of the 88.6 million hectares of land resources in the country, 60 million hectares are rangelands suitable for livestock grazing. The rangelands have a capacity to carry a total of 20 million livestock units.

Lack of a formal livestock market has led herdsmen in regions bordering Kenya to smuggle cattle out to the neighbouring country's livestock auctions, where it is claimed the "prices are better."

Parliament recently passed an Act to restructure the meat industry and establish a proper basis for its efficient management, as well as ensure provision of high quality meat products, and matters related therewith. The law will create the Tanzania Meat Board, whose functions will include advising the minister on promotion, development and production of meat animals, meat and meat products. The board will also supervise and promote livestock groups and associations in the meat sub-sector.

Even with such an enormous amount of livestock, however, Tanzania has only two functioning modern abattoirs in the country, Dodoma in the central zone and Arusha in the northern zone, both of which are renowned beef cattle catchment areas. The Arusha abattoir has a capacity of slaughtering 200 cattle per day.

The government recently decided to seek private investors to buy shares in the Dodoma abattoir. The abattoir is currently owned by the government of Tanzania in a joint venture with the National Ranching Company. It covers 11 hectares of land and has a capacity of slaughtering 200 cattle and 200 goats per day. The expected investor is expected to invest more than $1.9 million for the joint venture operations of the facility, which was constructed at a cost of $2.4 million.

Source: The East African (Nairobi)