30 Aug 2020

Botswana Meat Commission Maun abattoir is struggling to pay about P6.3 million it owes to farmers for cattle acquired from June to August.

Branch manager, Mr Oabona Ramotshwara revealed this when  updating Maun Administration Authority councillors recently, explaining that the abattoir had not paid suppliers because it depended on a quarterly subvention of P5.88 million from government, which had since not been paid for end of June to August.

Mr Ramotshwara added that they also had 194 tonnes of meat worth P4.5 million in storage after farmers managed to sell their cattle to the abattoir in numbers during the winter season. However, he expressed hope that they would be able to sell the meat in due time.

On the other hand, Mr Ramotshwara told the meeting that their annual intake of cattle slaughter had also been affected by the outbreak of COVID-19 and the consequent lockdown, which in turn forced the abattoir to revise its annual slaughter target from 16 000 to 6 000 cattle.

He said only 400 cattle were quarantined for slaughter between April and May because of movement restrictions due to lockdown, while 800 were quarantined for the month of June.

Again, he said they were anticipating to have about 2 000 cattle quarantined for slaughterlast month. Ends