ISLAMABAD, Dec 29: The Jamiatul Quresh Meat Welfare Association on Sunday threatened the government of launching a countrywide strike if it failed to arrest the scarcity of livestock.

The president of the association, Khurshid Ahmed Qureshi, while talking to Dawn said if the government was serious in pursuing the current ‘inept’ policy of exporting meat at the cost of domestic needs, then it should arrange for opening up other employment opportunities for the butchers community.

“The butchers community has been pushed to the wall due to massive export of meat to Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and other Islamic countries, while smuggling of livestock to countries like Afghanistan is still going without any check,” he deplored.

The president said the former livestock minister was responsible for the shortage as meat was exported to different countries without prior arrangements ignoring the fact that the process would create shortage in the country.

The scarcity of mutton and beef has also created a chain affect on white meat like fish and chicken, the prices of which are soaring up day by day, he added.

“The situation is heading towards a major crisis.”

He said healthy animals were being picked for export leaving only weak and frail animals for domestic use.

“The situation can be solved if the government put a ban on the export till new farmhouses of livestock are set up,” he said.

Mr Qureshi said the shortage adversely affected the butchers community financially as it reduced the number of hides to be sold to the tanneries, etc.

“Earlier around 5,500 goats and sheep, 3,000 cows and 1,500 calves were slaughtered every day for the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad, but due to the shortage only 450 to 500 goats were being slaughtered.”

The sharp decline in no terms can meet the daily requirement of the two cities, he added.

To him the sole reason behind current scarcity was the export as the companies involved in the export possess state-of- the-art facilities, which enable these to slaughter about 300 animals per hour.

As many as 14 firms are exporting meat with the help of the food and livestock ministry, the president said.

Mr Qureshi lamented that he also met President Musharraf and apprised him of the situation, but nothing had been done to ameliorate the problems of the butchers.

He warned that a strike by over 500,000 butchers in the country would create a havoc, the entire responsibility of which would rest with the government.

Meanwhile, prices of sacrificial animal are expected to be so high that majority of people will not be able to buy sheep and goats on forthcoming Eidul Fitr.

Some of the wholesalers and butchers feared that prices of cows, sheep and goats would further increase.

Butchers in the capital have made an increase of Rs30 and Rs15 in the prices of per kg mutton and beef respectively. Mutton is being sold at Rs145 to 150 per kg, while the new price for beef is stated to be Rs85 per kg.

A wholesaler, Mohammad Hayat, said people would get a healthy sacrificial goat for about Rs12,000 on the occasion of Eid. Where as, the price of a goat on last Eid was Rs7,000.

He said before the crisis, he used to supply over 500 goats in Islamabad every week. But now the number have squeezed to 150 due to shortage of animals in the market, he added.

“The firms involved in meat export pay more money then us to buy animals from the markets because they export meat at Rs250 per kg or more. However, we sell the same at Rs130 per kg,” he said.

The dealer said since the start of winter season, only Punjab province was catering the need of meat in the country as due to snowfall animals were not being supplied from the NWFP.