Hargeysa, Somaliland, February 17, 2007 (SL Times) - Hargeysa Mayor Hussein Mohamud Ji'ir has authorized the doubling of the fees charged by the Capital's only Abattoir which is run by Mandeq, a private company.

The Mayor said in a press conference held in his office last Thursday that the fees charged by Mandeq Company on behalf of Hargeysa local authority is going to be increased twofold.

It was last month when Mandeq company which manages the slaughter house on behalf of the local authority, declared in a press statement that it had decided to relinquish its operations and services of the local authority abattoir. Mandeq has run the abattoir for the past year since it opened in the outskirts of Hargeysa in 2006. Mandeq said that it cannot continue to operate the abattoir at current fee rates and has been trying to get the local and central government to address their complaints.

On Thursday, Ji'ir told the local media that he had formed a committee comprised of the local assembly, headed by Ismail Aymis to look into Mandeq's grievances and find a solution. Ji'ir said `as a result of the committee's findings we have concluded to increase the fees charged by Mandeq Company in order to save the abattoir from closing down'. He explained, “we cannot undermine the current standard of hygiene Mandeq company had installed in the abattoir and we must do everything in our power to keep Mandeq from relinquishing its operations and essential services that we have seen for the last year.”

Sample of current charges are 3300 Sl Sh, for slaughtering sheep/goat, and the new price 6600 Sl Sh, this is an increase of two fold.

Mayor Ji'ir single-handedly contracted Mandeq last year to run Hargeysa's new Abattoir. Many in the local authority's assembly openly criticized Ji'ir for the manner in which he awarded Mandeq the abattoir. This also at the time drew angry protests from butchers’ cooperatives and political parties who demanded an open inquiry into the mayor’s perceived illegal award of the abattoir to Mandeq without the assembly's acknowledgement of the contract, and for not issuing a tender bid so other companies could compete for the contract.

At the moment, no one other than Mayor Ji’ir and Mandeq knows the exact details of the contractual agreement and obligations signed by Ji'ir and Mandeq. When Ji'ir awarded Mandeq to run the abattoir last year he was pressed by the media to reveal the duration of the contract he signed with Mandeq. The mayor described it as an open-ended venture. Moreover, he envisaged the project to cost close to one million US dollars with most of the money to be contributed by Mandeq. No one other than Ji’ir and Mandeq knows whether this is true or not.

Source: Somaliland Times