Feed lotters backtrack on suing BMC, go after gov’t
Spira Tlhankane | Monday August 17, 2026 06:00
Although the court is yet to hear and decide on the matter fully, the feedlot giants have amended their initial filing notice and no longer seek any action against BMC, who are the fourth respondents in the matter. The farmers now want to take on the remaining respondents in an urgent matter, which are the Director of Veterinary Services, Dr Kobedi Segale, and the Minister of Lands and Agriculture, Dr Edwin Dikoloti, and the Attorney General (AG), Zone 12 Farmers Association, Botswana National Beef Producers Union and Feedlotters Association.
The farmers have since roped in a South African FMD expert lawyer, Advocate Reginald Willis. Willis told the court yesterday that they no longer seek any relief against the commission. The two companies were seeking a court order compelling BMC to immediately receive and slaughter all of their vaccinated feedlot cattle at full capacity, arguing that the animals have been left stranded while millions of pula hang in the balance.
In the initial notice filed late last month, the farmers also want the court to order BMC to package the applicants’ slaughtered beef and to store the same in its cold storage facilities indefinitely, until agreed or the court orders otherwise. “After Commission has completed slaughtering, packaging and storing all the applicants’ beef, the parties shall agree a fair and reasonable price for slaughtering, packaging and storage, failing which they must submit themselves to court annexed mediation in terms of order 42A,” they said.
Before the applicants’ u-turn to have BMC removed from the proceedings, the BMC, through their lawyers Charles Colombia Consultancy, in their notice to raise points of law indicated that it is not the author of the impugned administrative action.
“The review relief sought, and the interim relief ancillary to it, is directed at the decisions taken by the first respondent, alternatively the first and second respondents, under the Disease of Animals Act. The fourth respondent has, and exercises, no power under that Act, the Control of Livestock Industry Act, or otherwise, to declare infected areas or to impose or lift movement or slaughter restrictions,” the BMC indicated.
Farmers are accusing Segale and Dikoloti of strangling their businesses through prolonged FMD restrictions. BMC also argues that it took none of the decisions under review; therefore, no relief sounding in administrative-law review, nor mandatory relief premised on the lawfulness of the first and/or second respondents’ decisions, can be competently granted against it.
BMC says its operations at Lobatse are at all times subject to and constrained by whatever movement or slaughter restrictions the first respondent has in force, and an order compelling it to act inconsistently with a subsisting Order of the first respondent would be incapable of lawful performance. BMC also indicated that numerous feedlot owners, commercial farmers and communal farmers depend on the same finite BMC Lobatse slaughter and cold capacity. The Commission argues that the latter would be directly and substantially affected by an order requiring BMC to prioritise the applicants’ cattle.
“Those individuals’ producers have not been joined and have not had notice of or an opportunity to be heard on that consequence and the relief sought cannot completely be granted in their absence,” BMC noted. The matter has been postponed to Tuesday after the government lawyer, Joao Salbany, indicated that he needed more time to look at the applicants’ amended notice and also consult with his clients, Segale and Dikoloti.