The state-owned abattoir had lately outdone itself with most payments for the cattle that were sold in April/May only paid for in November.
Prominent farmer and former chairman of North West Integrated Farmers Association (NWIFA), Simon Bojosi has suggested that should the BMC continue with late payments, interest and other surcharges must be levied on the parastatal. He argued that parastatals, and indeed other government departments should see the livestock sector for what it is – a business. “And business sells goods and services so that they can continue to be in business. Now if you fail to pay for my goods, you’re effectively putting me out of business,” he reasoned.
Another farmer, who preferred anonymity for fear of victimisation in future dealings, disclosed that he had to wait from June to end of November before he could be paid. And it was only after he had legally attached BMC properties. Variously, this situation has at times been blamed for the region’s foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) status.
However, recently the Maun East Member of Parliament Goretetse Kekgonegile expressed surprise that there were no payment complaints from North East area MPs in parliament after the sale of the 7, 620 cattle to the BMC Maun plant.
The Maun East legislator accused the BMC of discriminatory practises as most farmers in Ngamiland had been waiting for more than six months. For years, the BMC Maun has struggled to meet payments timeously to farmers, particularly Ngamiland farmers.
For many a farming community in Ngamiland, the often cited “within 14 days from the date of slaughter” turnaround mantra has for years remained a mirage. The BMC started this strategy in 2018 but it has never been fulfilled. In response to a questionnaire, BMC Maun plant manager, Ishmael Ramorula seems to concur that poor payment turn-around could be responsible for farmers’ reluctance to sell to the BMC lately. Instead, they prefer to sell to the other two mediums through private abattoirs that offer lesser purchase price and higher slaughter fees. The BMC offers P31 per kilogram while Ngamiland Abattoir buys at P30/kg and Batawana Beef Abattoir at P29/kg, Further Ngamiland Abattoir and Batawana Beef charge P450 and P430 respectively as slaughter fees.
The BMC does not have these additional fees. In fact, since last month (November) the BMC is offering free cattle transportation from all the quarantines – both government and private. However, the BMC’s initiative could have been driven by the current seasonal shortage of slaughter cattle in the country. This squeeze, coupled with BMC’s administrative vulnerability, has not escaped the commission’s competitors. While the BMC is dreaming about the 14-day payment turnaround, the two private abattoirs are already into 1-3 days turnaround. An excited farmer explained that: “If I take cattle to Ngamiland Abattoir on Monday I’m then paid the next day (Tuesday), while at Batawana Beef I can deliver on Monday and get paid on Wednesday morning.
This is amazing.” In his response Ramorula had acknowledged that: “It is evident that farmers generally require that they be paid in the shortest time possible, which is also aligned to BMC’s strategy of within 14 days farmer payment. It also goes without saying that any delay in payment disrupts cattle supply to the plant which was experienced in the later part of this year.” Mmegi, however, could not establish from Ramorula exactly what was the cause of the latest round of late payments. In one breadth he says, “farmers were continually updated on the problems that the plant was encountering and on how this situation would permanently be resolved going into 2024” and in another he appears to blame the lapsed supply contract between the BMC and the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development. He explained that the bulk of Maun product is sold at cannery plant in Lobatse for production of stewed beef that is supplied to primary schools across the country under the Local Government ministry contract. “This year the contract for this supply elapsed which affected movement of the product to cannery and the ultimately cash flow for the Maun plant.
The said contract has since been extended and signed, and the interruption in farmer payment has been rectified and farmers have since been paid,” he said. He could not clarify though whether the lapse could have been due to the BMC’s failure to submit the contract extension documents in time or it was the Local Government ministry that did not do so. Mmegi is also still to get a response from the BMC establishing whether the commission and the ministry did not consider the lapse warranted an emergency response given that the crisis was only remedied eight months later (from April to November). Late payments to farmers and generally low uptake by BMC abattoir in Maun continue to make livestock industry unattractive for investors in Ngamiland. Many factors conspire to make this possible. The BMC Maun plant has a capacity for a daily slaughter rate of 100 herd of cattle, translating into an annual slaughter of 24, 000.
Though Ngamiland has a cattle population of more than 400, 000, this year the region could only muster a total of 6, 975 cattle to the BMC abattoir. These had come from three government quarantines of Makalamabedi, Nokaneng, and Kgomokgwana that supplied the plant with 5, 652 cattle; while an additional 1, 323 cattle were quarantined at 18 private farms, mostly in the Hainaveldt. The total supplied to the BMC plant comes to 6, 975. It would appear the plant was only saved by North East (Zone 6 B), which curiously is not known as a cattle zone, and Boteti/Nata/Gweta both of whom supplied 7, 620 and 348 respectively. However, the combined supply only reached 14, 943 or 62.26% of the BMC plant capacity.
There is also a drastic mismatch between the quarantines’ projected capacity of 7, 000 and the plant’s slaughter capacity of 24, 000. And that is only 29.1% of the slaughter capacity. Ramorula is also yet to explain the strategy the BMC has put in place going into 2024 aimed at optimising the slaughter rate at the Maun plant. Ramorula disclosed that the BMC sells its beef products within Ngamiland, Chobe, Francistown, Selebi-Phikwe, Palapye and Gaborone. He says the BMC also sells to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Some critics have questioned why the commission is failing to pay farmers in time yet it makes good profits from the Ngamiland beef. The BMC purchases cattle in Ngamiland at P31/kg while in the rest of the country or EU-market it pays at P45/kg or higher. Yet the BMC sells the Ngamiland beef to their southern market as if it was bought at an EU-market rate. The critics further charged that the commission is making an almost fraudulent killing from Ngamiland beef yet they do not have the decency to pay the farmers in time.
