Owners of animals found straying on roads, in public places and damaging property will face increased fees and penalties with the passing of a pounds amendment bill last Friday.
The Pounds and Certain Other Enactments (Amend-ment) Bill 2007, which was debated and passed last Friday, amends the Pounds Act, the Municipal and District Councils Act and the Roads Act.
The bill was presented by Minister of Home Affairs Clement Rohee and its passage was not fully supported by the joint opposition, which argued that a section singled out pigs for special treatment and deemed it discriminatory.
Fees have been increased from $15 at the lowest and $1,000 at the highest in the principal act, to not less than $10,000 and not more than $20,000 in the amended legislation. This amendment was fully supported by the entire National Assembly.
Minimum penalties have been introduced for releasing an impounded stray; ill-treating a stray while impounding it; driving an animal off private land to make it a stray and detaining a stray for longer than necessary. There are also minimum penalties for a pound-keeper who wrongfully allows a stray to be taken from his pound; a pound-keeper buying a stray from his own pound; and failure of a pound-keeper to account.
The bill also amended the Pounds Act to allow animals (except for pigs) straying on roads and bridges, other public lands or public places to be seized and impounded.
A new section has been inserted to provide for the destruction of pigs found on private premises or private land after notice is given to the owners and the police. The carcass of the pig has to be handed over to the owner.
If pigs are found on public premises or public lands, the police now have the authority to destroy them and hand the carcasses over to the owner of the pig, where the owner of the pig could be identified.
Both PNCR-1G and the AFC opposed this insertion.
Pigs to swine
PNCR-1G MP Deborah Backer described this move as retrogressive noting that a section of the 1866 principal act dealing with pigs was deleted in 1988 under the PNC administration. All animals including pigs were covered under the same provisions.
Backer said the reason why this was done was because pig owners were adversely affected, while owners of sheep and goats, whose animals caused as much destruction as the pigs, were treated otherwise. “They could kill the pigs but they could not kill the goats or sheep,” she said.
The only differences in the 1866 principal act and the current amendment, she was, was that the word ‘swine’ now reads ‘pigs’ and the carcasses of the swine in the principal act became the property of the destroyer whereas the current amendment allows for them to be given back to an owner.
Backer contended that the insertion was “horrendously difficult to comprehend” as she could not imagine the destroyer exchanging letters with the owners about the movement of the pigs. “The pigs being singled for special treatment in this manner is discrimination,” she said asking “Are they more dangerous than buffaloes, sheep and goats” and other strays on the roads such as dogs, horses, donkeys and cows?
She asked, whether they were also more ferocious than the other animals and whether they were more expensive and “would eat out the pounds” if they were impounded.
Noting that one group in society would have nothing to do with pigs while another reared them she asked whether that was also the reason for the discrimination.
Backer said the slaughter of pigs by private citizens and giving the police licence to kill pigs on public property when pigs are difficult animals to brand was licensing the police for more acts of corruption, especially in cases where owners might be difficult to locate.
Homo sapiens
AFC MP Sheila Holder, who joined the debate also argued against the section dealing with the pigs. She felt that as a matter of urgency the administration needed to find land on which owners of animals could conduct their business.
Holder noted that during Cricket World Cup 2007, efforts were made to contain the problem of strays on the road but the situation has reverted to what it was before.
Stating she would not support the licensing of policemen to shoot pigs arbitrarily, she rhetorically asked, “How many members of the police force have treated homo sapiens as pigs?”
The Home Affairs Ministry authorizing the police to kill pigs on public property, she said was reprehensible and the AFC would not support it. “I daresay that the problem has not been properly addressed,” she said.
She felt that the matter of the pigs could have been addressed in a more humane manner in keeping with international standards and asked if the matter had been looked at with animal rights activists.
Noting the ultra-sensitivity to ethnic issues, Holder said giving the police and affected property owners the licence to kill pigs, was “hot potatoes.”
Supporting the bill in its entirety were Minister of Works, Robeson Benn and PPP/C MP Dharamkumar Seeraj, both of whom felt the amendments were long overdue. Seeraj contended it was done after numerous consultations with crops and livestock farmers.
Rohee in summing up the debate argued that with the exception of Seeraj, others had “a woeful lack of understanding of pig rearing.”
In their consultations with the crops and livestock farmers, Rohee said, that they were “unanimous” in their approval of the amendments to the Pounds Act. (Miranda La Rose)
