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{
    "id": 64688,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/64688/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 441,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Dr. Kuti",
    "speaker_title": "The Minister for Livestock",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 60,
        "legal_name": "Mohammed Abdi Kuti",
        "slug": "mohammed-kuti"
    },
    "content": "Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, now, we are trying to put the pieces together and ensure that this subsector goes back to its old glory days and is able to contribute its full potential. Therefore, The Veterinary Surgeons and Para-Professionals Bill that is before the House, is one of those efforts to put back this subsector on track. This Bill will reorganize and also bring back professionalism. Just as human beings, the health of livestock must be taken care of because eventually, unhealthy animals will, definitely, lead to unhealthy human beings, especially from contact or consumption. Therefore, we need to have a team of professionals that will take care of the health of our livestock, for us to be able to consume quality and healthy livestock and livestock products. In the absence of this Bill in the past, only veterinary surgeons were registered and, therefore, they were the only legally recognized practitioners. But because, as I had said earlier, the Government had stopped hiring veterinary doctors, they only ended up being in high income urban centres, where they treated only pets, including dogs, cats and such like animals, where rich people were able to pay them good money. But in the rural areas, this was left to Animal Health Assistants who hold certificates and even some NGOs have recruited people who they have trained for only two weeks. They are called bare foot vets. They would go around treating our livestock, but they have no registration certificates. There are also other traditional and quacks who easily access medicine and practice veterinary service in those areas. The result is that we ended up with animals, which are either untreated and, therefore, some of them die. Some diseases are not cured or become resistant because of exposure to those medications. The other result is that our livestock ended up with a lot of residual products in their system. These are unwanted products because of excess drugs that they are exposed to in terms of amount or frequency. This was because many quacks have, therefore, taken advantage of the void that was there in terms of provision of quality veterinary care by qualified personnel."
}