Stray Pigs Keep Residents Awake

THE NEXT time you don't shut your door, pigs will occupy your room, says Mr. Albert Broderick, a landlord of Shaibu, a suburb of Dansoman in Accra.

Mr. Broderick, a teacher at Seven Great Princess Academy preparatory school, told the Chronicle that the situation is disheartening, as the pigs rattle at night disturbing residents in their sleep.

Apart from that, these animals indiscriminately defecate and burrow the soil, causing serious environmental hazards in the area. These animals he further said, were making things very uncomfortable to them by upturning dustbins.

According to Mr Broderick, owners of these animals have capitalized on the poor sanitary conditions and bred them on free-range system.

Mr. Kweku Asante, one of the pig-owners, told this paper that some of them depend on the pigs for their livelihood and that the invasion of pigs in and around the municipality is not anything new.

He mentioned Ashiaman and Achimota, among others, as the areas where the animals are kept on free-range.

Mr. Asante said that any attempt to rid the area of the pigs would be met with stiff opposition. He referred this paper to its report on heaps of refuse that has engulfed Kasoa, a market town in the Central part of the country, a few months ago.

About three years ago, the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) task force killed the pigs after a strange disease had attacked them. But it seems things have gone loose for them to resort to the old system as the momentum at which the animals are multiplying have incurred the displeasure of the residents.

Madam Otoo, also a resident of the area, told this paper that she is very concerned about the health of those who consume pork bred from this unhygienic environment, adding that the frequency at which one may contract disease is very rapid.