05 Jul 2018

Botswana Meat Commission Maun plant manager, Mr Oabona Ramotshwara says there is a need to consider restructuring business at the abattoir because the cost of production and producer payments outweigh revenue profits.

He said currently the abattoir was running at a loss due to inadequate supply of animals for slaughter, hence delays in payment of farmers.

Mr Ramotshwara was responding to comments from the North West District councillors on July 3.

Councillors argued that the abattoir was failing farmers as the management was taking long to pay farmers despite the two weeks turnaround times set by the commission.

There were complaints that the abattoir paid farmers after three months and that the longer it took the more the farmers were discouraged from supplying with animals.However, Mr Ramotshwara admitted that currently the business was not profitable; noting that the low turnout of cattle had resulted in the plant running at a loss.

The abattoir has stopped collecting cattle for slaughter since the recent suspected outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) in Naune crush within the Sehithwa extension area.

The manager said they were selling the existing meat products to pay farmers.

Since January to May this year, he said they had slaughtered 6 349 cattle, produced 886 tonnes of meat and managed to accumulate over P24 million on sales, over P21 million of which was paid to farmers.

“This means our profit was around P2 million, which money we used to pay bills and could not cover all our expenditure in the last five months. I believe we need to restructure the business,” he added.This, he said, contributed to poor performance of the plant and had become uneconomical to operate. Further, he explained that they were not failing farmers, as currently they had paid up to April.

Mr Ramotshwara however admitted that they had a one-month backlog to pay farmers. He however dismissed reports that they took three months to pay farmers.

He explained that they do experience a month if not a month and half delays to pay farmers due to the process of collecting, slaughtering and selling of the meat products in order to make payments.

Mr Ramotshwara revealed that efforts were being made to speed up the payment process once they had collected the monies.

Last week, it was reported that the abattoir was expected to resume operations once management sources animals from non-affected area.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Agricultural Development and Food Security has announced in a press statement that it had  made some changes on movement protocol of all cloven-hooved animals and their fresh products in the district following the recent FMD outbreak. Some of the changes are that movement of cloven-hooved animals in the district is allowed with prior arrangement and fresh products are allowed in with appropriate documentation; movement of fresh products that were produced in the last 30 days prior to the suspected outbreak can only be sold in Maun and Kasane.

Export of meat products from licensed facilities is allowed from animals that had successfully undergone 30 days of quarantining and maturation.

Another change is that movement of cattle will be through electronic permits only and should bear zonal brands.

However, the statement further reveals that where importing countries are not OIE recognised as FMD free areas and are willing to take the meat, animals can be exempted from pre-slaughter quarantine and that movement of fresh products into the affected areas is allowed with permit. ENDS