Despite the ban on the importation and sale of turkey tails because of their health hazards, there is still brisk business of the meat product in the open market.
Personnel of some security services allegedly provide security cover for the product to be conveyed in containers by agents to the market and sale points, particularly Nsawam near Accra where the business is booming.
Since February this year about 4,095 cartons of turkey tail have been seized and destroyed but the importation of the meat product goes on unabated.
The Food and Drugs Board (FDB) believes that some influential people are behind the illegal trade and are thwarting its efforts to check the trade.
A visit by the Daily Graphic to Nsawam revealed that the trade in the turkey tail was still visible and the patronage was still high despite the hike in prices of the product.
A turkey tail hawker at the Nsawam Lorry Park, Mrs Martha Adwoa Akyewaa, told the Daily Graphic that they used to pay GH¢20 for a carton of turkey tails, but with the ban the same carton was now sold for GH¢42.
She said despite the hike in prices, people still patronised the banned products, especially on weekends when people travel for picnics, weddings and naming ceremonies.
Miss Akosua Manuah, a trader who had been in the turkey tail trade for 10 years, said they used to travel to Accra to take their allocations but because of the ban and police harassment, they had stopped. Rather, she said, they relied on agents who brought the meat in containers to Nsawam.
She alleged that the police usually accompanied the containers to Nsawam where they collected between GH¢500 and GH¢600 from the agents in the illegal turkey tail business.
Miss Comfort Mawusi said even though many people including her had heard about the educational programmes on radio that turkey tails were full of fat and not good for consumption, because they was relatively cheaper than beef, goat and chicken people tended to patronise them.
The Food and Drugs Board has adopted a multi-prong approach to deal with the menace and nip the trade in the bud.
In an interview in Accra on illegal trade in turkey tail, Dr M. Mohammed-Alfa, the Head of Animal Products and Biosafety Department of the FDB, said the new strategy had been necessitated by the proliferation of the banned products on the market in recent times despite efforts to completely stop the importation of turkey tails into the country.
He said the multi-prong approach involved frequent search of major storage facilities to mop up the products still being kept in storage facilities to prevent them from being distributed to the various markets.
He said the public had been co-operating in that respect by providing tip-offs about the loading sites.
He said a network of importers of animal products was being established to ensure that the FDB worked closely with the importers to stop the trade.
Dr Mohammed-Alfa said the network of importers could also act as informants by reporting members and kingpins of the illegal turkey tail business to the FDB.
He said just last Thursday, a consignment of 300 cartons was seized on the premises of Alferdos Cold Stores at Kaneshie and that the war on turkey tails was being fought on all fronts.
He said as part of the multi-prong approach the FDB would visit Nsawam to hold series of meetings with the Akuapem South Assembly to educate members of the Assembly on the need to educate the people on the health hazards for them to move from the trade to other alternative means of making a livelihood.
Dr Mohammed-Alfa said similar meetings and educational tours had been planned for other parts of the country such at Dome and Aflao.
The Ministry of Trade and Industry in 1999 issued a communiqué to all importers to the effect that poultry and poultry products with total fat content exceeding 15 per cent were banned and not to be imported into the country.
Consequently, the Ministry of Food and Agriculture also stopped issuing permits for the importation of turkey tails into Ghana.
The Food and Drugs Board (FDB), therefore, asked the public to give information on any person known to be involved in the illegal importation of turkey tails.
The FDB noted that fat from turkey tails, being of animal source, was likely to have a good proportion of saturated fats which were associated with high cholesterol level and as such were implicated in the occurrence of many diseases, including heart diseases.
On February 8, 2010 the FDB, in conjunction with National Security and CEPS, detained a container of frozen chicken at Kaneshie because it contained 1,970 cartons of turkey tails as part of its contents.
Again, on February 9, 2010, the three institutions impounded a container in which 2,095 cartons of turkey tails had been concealed among 692 cartons of chicken backs.
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