12 Dec 2016

The Minister of Agricultural Development and Food Security says government seeks to restructure Botswana Meat Commission (BMC).

Speaking during a consultative meeting with Southern District councillors on December 9, Mr Patrick Ralotsia said he had proposed to Cabinet for the Lobatse abattoir to be separated from the other two being Maun and Francistown.

The idea was to privatise the Francistown facility and to revive the Maun abattoir.

Mr Ralotsia said the proposal was premised on the fact that the two facilities were perennially running at a loss and as a result relied on Lobatse abattoir for support.

He argued that it did not make business sense to operate the Francistown abattoir because it had never met its supply quota let alone made profit since inception.

He cited that this September, the abattoir slaughtered only 76 beasts a week against a target of 380 cattle per day.

“It’s pathetic that people are still being paid yet there is no work to be done, but the reality is people are not employed because they want work but because there is work to be done, “he reasoned.

The Maun abattoir on one hand, although it never made profit either, he said was hamstrung by the fact that it was situated within a Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) red Zone as a result relied on the Lobatse facility for survival.

Nonetheless, he shared that government would inject P20 Million into the Maun facility to keep it alive and capacitate it to service beef producers in the North West district.

 He said the facility was intended to become an insurance against the spread of FMD in the district. Without support, he feared it would be difficult to control FMD in the district because farmers would have no reason to look after their livestock.

Mr Ralotsia also Member of Parliament (MP) for the Kanye North constituency further contended that separating the Lobatse abattoir from the other two would enable it to make profits that would also trickle down to beef producers and pay them on time.

He said the situation at hand affected farmers in that instead of BMC paying them forthwith as usual, those who sold to the European Union market inevitably have to wait up to three months for their products to be paid off by the European Union because the money that could have ordinarily been used to pay them has now been used to bail out the other two limping facilities.

He also shared that the Lobatse facility, which he described as sustainable, would continue with a 50/50 partnership between BMC as a company and government.

The minister furthermore shared that some stakeholders in the one hand were calling for the BMC monopoly on the export of beef products be removed while Cabinet on the other hand proposed that an independent meat board be set up with a view to take care of export licencing, set market standards, registration of farmer cooperatives which would also become members of the board among others.

Mr Ralotsia also informed the councillors of the outbreak of a tomato pest called leaf miner and advised them to relay the warning to electorates.

 He said the pest which eats the whole seedling has so far affected farmers in Chobe, North East, Bobirwa and Francistown thus encouraged farmers to report any signs of attack.

Mr Ralotsia also advised Batswana to declare all import vegetables as they entered the country through border gates. He said there was suspicion that the pest might have been smuggled with untreated vegetables into the country.

When reacting to Mr Ralotsia’s proposals Mr Ben Lebogang agreed that separating Francistown and Maun abattoirs from the Lobatse facility would enable it to realise profits.

However, Mr Lebogang also argued that farmers did not benefit as much as they could from selling their livestock to BMC because it has deviated from its initial position of being a marketing to a buying entity therefore profits did not trickle down to them.

District commissioner Mr Mmoloki Raletobana in his contribution concurred that the Francistown abattoir be privatised.

He said farmers in the Francistown catchment area could still sell their livestock to the Lobatse facility adding the distance would be far less than the one travelled by farmers in places like Ncojane in the Ghanzi district.
Mr Phiri however encouraged BMC to focus on what he described as its core mandate.

He said some challenges were birthed by the fact that the government sponsored company has somewhat deviated from its core mandate citing as a case in point that in recent years a good share of its budget was channeled towards sports.

Mr Sonny Phiri also argued that the situation at BMC was exacerbated by what he described as unsustainable allowances for executive officers and corruption.

He said it was strange that although endowed with human resource, the company usually opted to outsource work.

Mr Baichele Mooketsane, while he agreed with the privatisation of the Francistown abattoir, warned that due care be taken to advertise the facility to potential investors to ensure jobs were protected. ENDS