Faizel Patel, Radio Islam News – 04-10-2016
The South African National Halaal Authority (SANHA) has told Radio Islam it does not approve or certify any imported poultry regardless from which country the chickens are from.
Reports emerged yesterday that Certain US chicken portions entering South Africa under the US African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) are halaal and certified by SANHA.
According to Fin24 Mountaire Farms which operates facilities in Delaware, Maryland and North Carolina, has exported over 1 000 tonnes of drumsticks, leg quarters, gizzards and hearts to South Africa.
The online news website reports that it was feared that allowing US chicken into South Africa would pose a threat to the domestic market as well as consumers’ health over alleged sanitary concerns.
SANHA’s Ebrahim Lockhat says while all most poultry in South Africa is halaal, it’s difficult to certify imported poultry because they do not have the requisite people on the ground and also the imported birds are machine slaughtered.
“We are unable to do that unlike some organisations are happy to get disclosure with the paper that says the shipment that is coming to South Africa, this is halaal. When we give out a certificate we regard that as a shahada which is a testimony that our theological director ‘s signature in on there, it’s a testimony that its halaal.”
Lockhat says representatives of SANHA have been to other countries to monitor the halaal cerifying process discovering a number violations.
“They found enormous shortfalls and in one instance they found that Christians were slaughtering and the guy merely quoted and said ‘we are people of the book so what’s wrong with that?’”
Lockhat says that Fin24 has since retracted the initial article replacing it with another post listing SANHA’s objections stating that it did not certify the imported poultry.
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