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ANC wants government to buy ailing poultry farms to help keep them afloat

The African National Congress national executive committee lekgotla is proposing that government buy poultry farms that are being forced to close down because of chicken imports.

Speaking at the briefing on the NEC lekgotla at Luthuli House‚ ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe said the government must intervene to stem the job losses currently being experienced in the poultry industry.

“Government must buy the poultry farms that are being closed down and continue producing. This will not only require the state to buy‚ but it also means that the state will have to find new markets for the poultry that is produced in those farms‚” he said.

The Times reported on Monday about 1‚200 workers who were left jobless after Rainbow Chickens‚ renamed RCL Foods‚ was forced to sell 15 of its 25 Hammersdale poultry farms just to stay afloat.

The retrenchments will have a devastating effect on the KwaZulu-Natal town as the poultry farms were the major employer in the area following the closure of the textile industry in the mid-1990s.

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