20 Mar 2016

Botswana Meat Commission (BMC) chief executive officer, Mr Akolang Tombale says measles remains a serious challenge to the beef industry.

Addressing a kgotla meeting organised by BMC in Serowe recently, Mr Tombale indicated that the country had lost P56 million to cattle diagnosed with measles.

Thus, he urged farmers to assist in controlling the disease and also encouraged them to build toilets in their cattle ranches and farms so that livestock did not have contact with human remains.

Again, he urged them to buy alberdanzole tablets to fight measles.  On one hand, Mr Tombale told them meeting that BMC had put up interventions and working round the clock to open the Francistown abattoir.

“If things go well the abattoir will be open soon,” he said. He said the abattoir was delisted following the EU inspection in 2013 which resulted in its closure because it was adjacent to the cordon fence.

Meanwhile, the EU audit provides that an abattoir must be 20 kilometres away from the cordon fence.

As such, Dr Tombale said some interventions had been made to meet EU requirements and therefore subsequent moving of the cordon fence 20km away from the abattoir.

He said the EU delegation visited the country in October last year to check progress and made recommendations some of which the BMC had already implemented.

Nevertheless, Dr Tombale raised concern about the Francistown abattoir’s failure to meet targets over the years which he attributed to over design.

He explained that the abattoir was expected to reach at least 85 per cent capacity but the Francistown abattoir was only operating at 71 per cent and thus failed to make profit.

To reduce costs, he said the BMC abridged staff at the abattoir by 50 per cent and would continue to monitor it for a period of six months.

Meanwhile, Mr Moatlhodi Makubate from Botswana Unified Revenue Service (BURS) said farmers would be taxed four per cent whenever they sold their livestock to BMC

Mr Makubate explained that the four per cent would go into BURS coffers not BMC contrary to what some people thought.

He said farmers who sold to butcheries would also be charged four per cent. Ends