18 Jun 2019

Farmers who have been using Central District Council (CDC) run abattoirs will have to look for alternative abattoirs after government decision to privatise the services, CDC chairperson Mr Peter Williams has said.

Speaking at the opening of the CDC full council sitting, Mr Williams said that none of their abattoirs were operational owing to a decision taken to privatise the services.

Consequently, he said, farmers would have to bear higher charges at private facilities which, in many instances, were a distance from the farmers.

To drive his argument home, the CDC chairman compared that the CDC run abattoirs charged P80 to slaughter a single head whilst private operators charged around P280.

However, the chairman commended Lucara Botswana for rescuing the Letlhakane abattoir. Lucara Botswana recently disclosed that they would bankroll the abattoir to bring it to operational stage where thereafter would be run by a private operator identified by the board.

 The board will be formed by members from Lucara and council. When briefing Boteti East MP recently, general manager of Lucara Botswana, Mr Joe Mchive, said the abattoir would remain a property of Boteti Sub Council. He said it was part of their corporate social investment to help the community they operated from.

As a result of the precedence set by Lucara Botswana, Mr Williams called on the business community to emulate the company.

The move, he said would ensure that farmers did not suffer the financial burden.

On other issues, Mr Williams said that Serowe internal roads were progressing well despite challenges where in some instances the contractors had to be stopped because of their substandard deliveries.

Mr Williams also noted that the internal roads and street lights at Tutume equally done well.

In addition to the street lights project, Mr Williams said that the Tonota lights were fully functional. ENDs