OVER 100 JOBLESS AS BIRD FLU KILLS 15 CHICKEN BUSINESSES

MANZINI – Over 15 broiler businesses have shut down and more than 100 people left jobless as the country has been hit by a serious shortage of chickens due to the outbreak of bird flu in South Africa.

The neighbouring country is Swaziland’s main exporter of broiler chicks. After the outbreak of the highly pathogenic H5N8 bird flu on a commercial broiler breeder farm in the Mpumalanga Province about two months ago, South Africa stopped exporting broiler chicks to its neighbouring countries, including Swaziland in order to prevent the disease from spreading.

As a result of this decision, the country is among SA neighbours faced with a serious shortage of broiler chickens and a number of businesspeople who were in this trade were forced to close down their businesses about two weeks ago, something that left their employees jobless.

At Mathangeni, Matsapha, over 15 businesses dealing in broilers have closed down because of the shortage and about 100 people, who include chicken vendors and those who were plucking the broilers, automatically became jobless.
Mkhuzeni Dlamini, one of the chicken vendors at Mathangeni, said another business which was affected was that of braaied chicken, which is widely known as ‘chicken dust’.

He said most of those businesses around Matsapha had closed down because of the shortage of broilers.
Meanwhile, another businessman who sold chickens at Mathangeni said he, together with other counterparts, stopped operating two weeks ago when the shortage of broilers started.

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