A group of people living near the Addis Ababa Abattoirs Enterprise commonly known as Kera, have brought a complaint letter to the Addis Ababa Environmental Protection Authority saying that the foul smell coming from the abattoir is creating health problems.
They say over 150 residents are being affected by the bad odor coming from the cooking kitchen and the byproducts of waste from the abattoirs.
A resident around the area told Capital “there is a disgusting smell on a regular basis. It starts at 4 PM and continues for four hours. The stench causes breathing difficulty and we can’t relax or sleep well. We have written a letter to the Enterprise but they have not given us a satisfactory response.”
Residents say the stench has been an issue for years and they are unhappy that this has been continuing. They want public officials to do more to eliminate the odor.
“If they could live here and see what it’s like in the evenings, the decision makers that could do something about it, would do something about it,” the resident adds.
Nebret Beka, Managing Director of the enterprise told Capital that the bad smell is happening because dump trucks in the city are unwilling to load the waste from the abattoirs.
“It can take at least two or three days until the truck comes to us to load the waste, we told them to load it every day but they are get paid by cubic meters in other places, we are asking the city administration for our own dump truck.”
“We are committed to being a good neighbor and we take our community responsibility seriously. We appreciate the concerns that have been expressed and continue to evaluate and address the situation, including the source of the odor and ways in which we can help further address it. We have already taken significant strides in that direction, including preparing ourselves for a better waste management system. We are in touch with experts and soon they will come here to conduct a study’’ the Managing Director adds.
In related news, the new abattoir located at Hana Mariam is being challenged by delays in the relocation of the residents of the area.
“There are around 55 legal homes here so the city administration is working to give them better compensation but the process is taking a long time. Over 350 houses are constructed illegally. The project site is owned by us but all of these issues are creating a headache for us. We are in the process of hiring a consultant for the new abattoirs. We plan to begin the construction in July,” Nebret said.
In September 2017, Ethiopia and France signed a 70.5 million euro loan and grant agreement to support the relocation and expansion of the Addis Ababa Abattoirs Enterprise.
The new encompass lied on 17,400 square meters and it is going to have the capacity to handle 14,000 animals per day. Compared to this, the old slaughter house has the capacity of only slaughtering 1,200 animals per day.
The old abattoir has seen some improvements in the past years. Nonetheless, expansion and improvement projects faced difficulties due to space limitation. With the new slaughter house, the Enterprise expects to render different new services such as export slaughtering service and environmental mitigation actions.
The export service is expected to be given through an automatic line which can handle bulls, sheep and goats.
An upgrading system for processing by products to produce animal tallow, meat bone meal, glue and pure bone meal will also be installed in the new abattoir. In addition to these the new abattoir will feature a biogas plant and water treatment plant to enable the treatment of water and reuse of water.