Johannesburg - Millions of chickens owned by Astral Foods.
will starve if planned power cuts to the South African poultry producer’s
largest facility go ahead, the company warned on Thursday.
Eskom Holdings will interrupt supplies to the
Lekwa municipality starting January 23 after local authorities failed to settle
outstanding electricity bills, Astral said in an e-mailed statement,
citing a letter from the state-owned utility. Eskom may cut supplies “entirely
and indefinitely” at a future date, it said. Astral has its largest
feed-milling and poultry-processing operations in the area, about 160 kilometres
south west of Johannesburg.
“Should permanent power cuts be implemented as outlined
by Eskom in their correspondence, Astral will be left with 11.5 million
chickens that they will not be able to feed on a daily basis,” the company
said. “The animal welfare impact will be catastrophic leading to unprecedented
large-scale euthanasia of the birds.”
Read also: Eskom will cut off defaulting municipalities
Eskom didn’t immediately respond to a request for
comment. The utility is seeking to recoup more than R10 billion in overdue
payments by South African municipalities, the Fin24 website reported on January
4, citing an affidavit by the power company.
Astral is the largest client of Lekwa municipality and
all its bills are up to date, the poultry company said.