28 Feb 2019

Public Enterprises Evaluation and Privatisation Agency (PEEPA) project manager, Letshego Moeng, says time taken to complete Botswana Meat Commission (BMC) privatisation process would depend on the model adopted by government.

Government, in 2017, announced a decision to privatise BMC by selling off some shares of both the Lobatse and Francistown abattoirs to the private sector.

Interviewed during a tour of Lobatse abattoir on February 26, Mr Moeng, who is also the project manager for BMC privatisation, explained that they were in the process of developing the BMC privatisation strategy.

He said the strategy would recommend different privatisation model options from which government would choose a preferred one for BMC privatization.

“Our timelines are that by July, we should have the preferred privatisation option to be presented to government for approval. So we believe that thereafter, depending on the model that is preferred by government, then it will inform how long the privatization process will take and the form in which BMC will be privatized,” he pointed out.

Mr Moeng highlighted that they would hold consultations with key stakeholders, including farmers and regulatory authorities.
“

Depending on the model that will be preferred by government, we will then go out to the market to actually find suitors or partners to take over BMC,” he said.

He said they toured Lobatse abattoir in order to understand the operations, processes and challenges.

“Well am really impressed. It is clean and the process looks very efficient. But from further interrogations there are challenges with the number of cattle they receive. They are operating way below their capacity.

Because of not using the entire capacity they carry a lot of costs. Secondly there are other issues they are experiencing, particularly having the confidence of the suppliers. That is possibly due to the late payment to farmers which is not working in their favour,” he added.

He further said they were also working on establishment of a meat regulator, which will come up with institutional framework of how the entire value chain will be, set the standards, ensure compliance, and look into growing the sector to become profitable and viable.

BMC’s chief strategy officer Brian Dioka, explained that the Lobatse abattoir was slaughtering cattle at 62 per cent of its capacity, which meant that they were operating way below capacity.

Mr Dioka said BMC has projected to slaughter 117, 000 cattle this year, which will be an increase of 14 000 beasts compared to last year.
 

He further said the commission was intending to increase revenue by 24 percent to P1.3 billion in 2019 from P999, 737 last year.

“The aim is to inculcate market confidence back to BMC in terms of consumers and suppliers. We want to ensure that the new owners find the business in a very solvent position,” Mr Dioka said. Ends