Vietnam-Concerns over meat regulating.

Ho Chi Minh City legislators Tuesday questioned the ineffective management of local wild meat markets even as concerned agencies passed the buck to each other.

Many restaurants in the city have been serving wild meat dishes with impunity and traders confidently assert they will meet any demand for wild meat.

"Pangolin cooked in Chinese medicine," "pangolin steamed with ginger," "roasted fox," and several cobra meat preparations are dishes easily found in a District 5 restaurant on An Duong Vuong Street.

Pangolin dishes sell for VND2.2 million (US$126) a kilogram, fox for VND650,000 ($37) and cobra for VND780,000 ($45).

On the ground floor of the restaurant are many cages to keep various exotic animals, including strange birds, iguanas and hedgehogs.

A waitress at the restaurant also recommends customers drink wine mixed with pangolin blood.

The Pham Viet Chanh market falls under the purview of District 1 officials, but it sells wild meat every day.

Sau, the owner of a booth in the market, Tuesday advertised she always has deer, boar and muntjac meat at hand.

She also told customers to come to her house in Dong Nai Province’s Bien Hoa Town, not far from HCMC, if they need to buy meat at night.

The neighboring Thanh Loan booth also displays different kinds of wild meat, priced at VND110,000 ($6) a kilogram.

At a meeting with the city Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD) Tuesday, city People’s Council member Nguyen Van Minh said officials from the council’s Culture and Society Office have been aware that wild meat is sold and served in the city openly.

District 1 authorities claim they only allow people at Pham Viet Chanh market to sell beef, while district animal health officials denied any responsibility for the sale of wild meat at the local market.

Minh said forest wardens should take the brunt of the responsibility.

Le Thanh Liem, director of DARD, which oversees the forest warden office, said at the meeting that he himself had inspected the market many times only to find beef and veal.

Head of the HCMC Forest Management Bureau, Nguyen Dinh Cuong, told Thanh Nien on the sidelines of the meeting that he usually sends officials to inspect the market but they have never found wild meat.

"We also go to any restaurant once we’re informed that they are serving wild meat, but they hide the animals at different places and the officials are not able to discover them."

The meeting also raised concerns about the widespread sale of dog meat.

Unofficial statistics show thousands of dog slaughterhouses and restaurants operating in the city with officials doing little about their safety and hygiene conditions.

Truong Thi Kim Chau, deputy director of the city Animal Health Bureau, said there’s no instruction for testing the quality of dog meat, dog slaughterhouses or restaurants.

Chau said the bureau has asked the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to issue the instructions needed for her office to act.

But the ministry refuses because Vietnam is signatory to several international conventions that don’t support the killing of dogs, she said.

"Then local authorities have to test the quality of those places themselves," Chau said.

Pham Van Hai, vice chairman of the city Fatherland Front Committee, said "animal health officials should admit their weak management and try to fix that.

"If they keep passing the buck to each other, the food market will be left uncontrolled."