10 Dec 2017

Minister of Agricultural Development and Food Security, Mr Patrick Ralotsia has told Parliament that the ministry had done intensive stakeholder consultations country-wide pertaining to the privatisation of the Francistown, Maun and Lobatse BMC abattoirs.

He said he had addressed eight consultative meetings to solicit ideas from the Botswana National Beef Producers Union; Southern, North East, Ngamiland, and Kgatleng full district councils meetings; Gaborone, Western and Francistown regions from December 2016 to March 2017.

Mr Ralotsia said after the stakeholder consultations, a Cabinet Memorandum was circulated in April to all ministries and independent departments for their comments.

“At least 17 ministries supported the Cabinet Memorandum without comments while nine supported it with comments.

Responses to the comments were made and the Cabinet Memorandum was finalised with the final recommendations,” he stated.

He however highlighted that there was a key comment  that the privatisation strategy should take into consideration the recommendations of the ongoing feasibility study on the liberalisation of the Botswana beef export market undertaken by KPMG.

Minister Ralotsia indicated that KPMG had been engaged to undertake a feasibility study on the liberalisation of the Botswana beef export market for the period March 2017 to October 2017, and had now been extended to end of December for the consultant to engage all the relevant stakeholders.

Further, he said the comprehensive study covered the whole beef value chain including experiences from other countries; adding that on its completion, recommendations on policy and regulatory changes would be considered for inclusion in the final recommendations before he would revert to cabinet on the future of BMC.

Ghanzi North MP, Mr Noah Salakae had asked the minister to update Parliament on the privatisation of the Francistown, Maun and Lobatse abattoirs. ENDS