Algiers, Algeria – The president of Algeria has announced plans to import an amazing one million sheep before this year Eid al-EhaMuslim vacations during which families buy cattle for sacrifice.
Abdelmadjid Tebboune On Sunday he instructed his ministers to launch plans for the importation effort of mass livestock to stabilize costs and meet the very high demand.
The plan is the last of a series of measures designed to facilitate public frustration on the growing costs and the intransigent control of the government backed by the Army on Power.
It is based on previous efforts to flood markets with basic foods during the sacred month of Ramadan del Islam. However, its scale has few parallels.
North Africa is supporting its seventh consecutive year of extreme heat and rain below the average. The record drought has reduced the crops and has increased the price of the animal food necessary to raise cattle, even in the highlands of northern Algerian, where breeders raised sheep revered by the population for their quality.
The Government of Algeria has traditionally played a dominant role in the economy and in the past, cattle imported in small quantities to guarantee affordable options for low -income citizens. Last year, it facilitated the sale of 100,000 sheep in state stores, obtaining them from Argentina, Australia, Brazil and Spain.
Eid al-EhaThat takes place this year in early June, it is an annual “feast of sacrifice” in which Muslims kill sheep to honor a passage of the Qur’an in which the prophet Ibrahim prepared to sacrifice his son as an act of obedience to God, who intervened and replaced the child with a sheep.
It is a famous tradition in Algeria of Muslim majority, but also a expensive proposal. During the eid last year, sheep prices shot at 200,000 Algerian Dinares ($ 1,496) in some markets, ten times the minimum wage of the country. In recent years, many Algerians have been forced to give up the precious tradition.
This year’s initiative aims to prevent price and shortage peaks that can put ritual sacrifice out of the reach of most Algerian families.
The Ministries of Agriculture and Commerce will immediately seek international sources to fulfill the objective of Tebboune, hoping to counteract the very high inflation that has pushed basic goods and services, including meat, beyond the reach of many.
“Thank God, this year’s Ramadan is a blessing. The markets are well supplied, housewives can buy without stress, without pressure. The products are available and prices can be accessed, ”said Yasmine Zireg, mother of three children, Monday.
History has shown that food prices can incite generalized political anger in North Africa and Algeria is not the only country that takes steps ahead of Eid al-Adha.
Its import plan occurs only ten days after the neighbor of King of Morocco, Mohammed VI offered its subjects a respite of the expensive ritual. The king said that in a letter on February 27 he reads on state television, he warned that the massacre could carry low -income Moroccans and, as the greatest religious authority under Moroccan law, said they could give up it.
The movement, which was widely covered with Algerian media, could damage cattle producers and display between those who can pay sheep and those who cannot exhibit.
Tebboune’s intervention is also designed to make the EID more feasible for those who otherwise could not pay sheep. It is one of several government spending policies that Algeria has established to calm social disturbances while continuing to take energetic measures against opposition parties, journalists and critical people with the government backed by the army.
