15 Sep 2016

Botswana Meat Commission’s (BMC) chief executive officer Dr Akolang Tombale says a total of P2 billion is needed to modernise the Lobatse abattoir.

Presenting before the Parliamentary Committee on Statutory Bodies and Enterprises on Tuesday (September 13), he said Lobatse abattoir was making a loss of P45 million further noting that Lobatse needed to be separated from Francistown and Maun abattoirs for it to be efficient.

Dr Tombale said government had for the past two years invested P93 million into BMC.

He said it was high time Botswana established a proper meat regulator which would be followed by privatisation of BMC to allow for other players to compete in the market.

Dr Tombale said Botswana needed to liberalise the meat market like Namibia and invite more players for diversification purposes.

He highlighted that currently Maun and Francistown operate as social projects hence noting that they should remain as such.

The CEO indicated that their revenue had improved ever since BMC introduced a marketing agent who sells the entity to international markets.

He said the agent sells BMC products to Asia, Europe and South Africa however stating that the agent was not exclusive as they could still find someone to market BMC.

Dr Tombale noted that BMC was not a volume producer compared to other players in the market adding that they had a small stake of the market contributing three percent in Europe and 1.65 in South Africa.

The CEO stated that despite the fact that they had a marketing agent they do visit their customers every year whom they have a fruitful working relationship with.

He said BMC can take a minimum of 14 days to pay farmers and longest duration being 21 days which he said was an improvement from the past where it took longer hence resulting in complaints.

Members of Parliament requested the CEO to submit documents and paper trail that led to the selection of the marketing agent.

MP’s probed BMC on the tendering selection process holding views that the legal process might not have been followed.

They further stated that it was worrying that a company could have been trusted with such huge responsibility of selling Botswana’s beef yet the tender was selective closing other players out.

The parliament committee said BMC was technically bankrupt and operating outside the Act because it failed to contribute positively as per the Act. ENDS