Municipality launches procedure according to court order
FOLLOWING months of complaints about stray cattle on public roads, including several accidents, Ndlambe Municipality released its procedures for reporting and impounding stray cattle this week.
The municipality had already reached a 60-day deadline imposed by the Grahamstown High Court after the court ruled in favour of an application by Agri Eastern Cape, the Alexandria Agricultural Association (AAA) and four farmers.
In response to TotT’s queries municipal spokesman Cecil Mbolekwa provided the following eight-point procedure for reporting and impounding stray cattle:
- All calls from the public regarding stray animals will be reported to the Fire and Emergency Services 24 hours per day, by phoning (046) 624-1111.
- The control room operator will record all complaints regarding stray animals on the Rural Metro Dispatch System and or occurrence book (that can be made available as and when needed).
- The control room operator will contact the chief traffic officer (CTO) / chief fire officer (CFO) before activating the stray animal team (SAT).
- CTO / CFO then give the authority to the control room operator to activate stray animal team leader (SATL).
- The SATL will then activate the stray animal truck driver and his team to proceed and load the said stray animals.
- The pound master will open up the Alexandria Pound and follow procedures to impound the stray animals.
- The by-law compliance officer will issue the relevant fines to the owners of the stray animals on collection of these animals.
- No animals may be released from the pound if not been tagged.
The municipality did not provide the pound master’s phone number, but it is the one we got a response from on Sunday night. The number is 083-662-1481.
See the full story in this week’s Talk of the Town.
