18 Dec 2025

The methods used by thieves to slaughter livestock are wholly unacceptable and do not fall within recongised and humane standard of animal handling and slaughter.
However, the conduct is not properly characterised as an offence of cruelty to animals within the meaning and contemplation of the Cruelty to Animals Act, Minister of Communications and Innovation, Mr David Tshere, told Parliament on Wednesday.
The minister who was responding to a question in Parliament on behalf of the Minister for State President, Defence and Security, said the dominant intention and objective of the perpetrators was the unlawful appropriation of stock for purposes of slaughter, sale and profit, rather than the willful or wanton infliction of suffering as an end in itself.
He detailed that any suffering occasioned to the animal was incidental to the commission of the primary offence and not the mischief that the cruelty provisions were designed to address.
Accordingly, the opposite and sustainable charge arising from such conduct was that of stealing stock, which squarely captured both the criminal intent and the substantive harm sought to be prevented by the law, minister Tshere said.
He was responding to a question posed by Kanye West MP, Mr Victor Phologolo who wanted the minister explain if the methods used by criminals to butcher cattle in the bush such as breaking their legs, tying them to trees before slashing their necks with machetes, were acceptable or constituted cruelty to animals. ENDS