BMC competition comes to an end

JOYCE GREY
Correspondent | Tuesday May 4, 2010 00:00

In the end, 34-year-old Moses Kabo Mmileng, a teacher at Seepapitso Senior Secondary School, emerged the winner after only four people reached the finals. 

The Botswana Meat Commission (BMC) competition, which the parastatal characterises as a way of thanking its customers for their loyalty through good and bad times, (BMC) has been running since last year.

Those who did not make it to the final stage were given consolation prices of P700 and 5kg packages of beef each. The only woman in the competition, Andries Duplesis, won a branding oven. Philip Modise won a generator while Jean Douw van Riet won a digital cattle scale.

But the man of the moment was Kabo Mmileng, who became the envy of everyone when he won 20 heifers and a bull. He was overwhelmed: 'I cannot believe that I have really won,' he said. 'It is as though I am dreaming.'

Struggling to recover, he said he intended to keep the young beasts because 'the windfall' had come at a time when he needed cattle badly. 'I will crossbreed them with the few that I have and keep them,' he said.

The Livestock Procurement Manager of BMC's Francistown abattoir, Baazhi Marobela, said he was happy that the campaign had reached farmers all over the country because people had been calling the office to enquire about services offered by BMC.  'The message was well received because now farmers know that they can make more money by selling cattle to the BMC,' Marobela said.

He added that farmers should contact the BMC to learn how they could make more money by selling the right quality of animals at the right time.