BNBPU recognition & the BMC privatization process

Staff Writer | Friday February 24, 2017 17:36

 

The Ministry’s recognition of the BNBPU and the role it is to play in the reform of the BMC was articulated at LETSEMA 3 in April 2013 through a joint BMC/MOA/BNBPU resolution: There shall be reform in the beef industry to ensure that the sector is profitable and these reforms should be after a thorough detailed study same as was done with Botswana Telecommunications, not just Monopoly and Act but the whole beef industry.

Producers through BNBPU shall have a say in these reforms. The Ministry has not complied with both of these resolutions.  In the first instance, the joint resolution states unequivocally that reforms will only be implemented after a thorough beef sector study has been conducted. After four long years of inaction, the MoADFS finally invited the BNBPU in January 2017 to participate in the reference group for the study referred to in the joint resolution, which is being conducted by KPMG  which will take six months to complete. The BNBPU has also proposed its own co-op BMC privatisation study to be completed within the same time frame.

To comply with the Letsema 3 joint resolution, we had expected and hoped  that the Ministry will defer submission of its Cab Memo on BMC privatisation until the KPMG and the BNBPU studies have been completed.  The Minister’s recently reported statement to the press that he will proceed with the submission of his Cab Memo as soon as his current round of consultations are done i.e. before the KPMG and BNBPU’s studies have been completed , in our view undermines the letter and spirit of the Letsema 3 joint resolution which is  rather unfortunate  and as  BNBPU we are dissapointed at such a statement.

Secondly, the joint resolution states unequivocally that the BNBPU will have a say in “these reforms”. This notwithstanding, the Minister submitted a Memorandum to Cabinet  in November, 2016 recommending the privatisation of the BMC without having first consulted with the BNBPU. It is reassuring, however, that His Excellency the President deferred consideration of the Cabinet Memorandum on BMC privatisation until the Minister has consulted with the BNBPU.

It seems like the Minister  recognises and engages with the BNBPU as the national umbrella body representing all cattle producers, when it suites him. But when the Minister anticipates BNBPU pushback on the BMC privatisation and export liberalisation strategy, the Minister uses a “divide and conquer” strategy intended to sideline the BNBPU. He is  alleging that the BNBPU is “not united” and therefore not representative of 100% of cattle producers. By “not united”, the Minister is referring to the Gantsi District Cattle Producers Association which has withdrawn from the BNBPU because, like the Minister, Gantsi producers want the BMC to be privatised (blindly) and beef exports to be liberalised without any adequate study or information to support this. Seventeen out of 19 regions countrywide are affiliated to BNBPU.

This view is diametrically opposed to the BNBPU’s position … unless by privatisation the Minister means the transfer of BMC assets to a company owned by a cattle producer co-op as has been proposed by the BNBPU. And in an effort to further marginalise the BNBPU, the Minister has restricted the BNBPU to only one representative at each meeting on the Minister’s national consultation tour which, reveals how dismissive the Minister is of the BNBPU.

The BNBPU is the representative body for the Botswana cattle producers, notwithstanding that certain individual farmers or producer associations may not be formally affiliated with the BNBPU.

The BNBPU also draws attention to the Minister’s comment at LETSEMA 3 that “… Government fully supports the producers associations and will henceforth finance it through the export levy as a Union and that he wants to see producers controlling BMC and have a strong position in the Board.”   The Minister has withheld export levy funding from the BNBPU and this has severely constrained the BNBPU’s capacity to fulfil its mandate.

It is the Ministry which encouraged cattle producers to organise into associations and to form a national umbrella representative body, which would speak to Governement with  one voice. That is until the Minister didn’t like what that voice had to say. This condescending attitude towards the BNBPU is part of the Ministry’s DNA which generally views producer organisations as a necessary evil to be superficially recognised when compliant but to be manipulated and disregarded when not. Bottom line, the Minister cannot treat the BNBPU as “half pregnant”. Either the Minister recognises and engages with the BNBPU as the representative body for all catttle producers in the country or he does not.

To resolve this issue once and for all, I call upon the Minister to publicly and unequivocally reafirm that he recognises the BNBPU as the national representative body of the Botswana cattle production industry and that henceforth he will engage with the BNBPU on this basis. Once again, the BNBPU pleads with the Minister to refrain from proceeding with his Cab Memo on BMC privatisation until the KPMG and BNBPU studies have been completed and duly considered as he undertook to do at Letsema 3.