Horticulture Market seeks P50m capital injection

The strategy, which has been developed by a South African company, Brand New Harvest at a budget of P48 million, is expected to turn the company into a profit making entity again.

According to the Acting Chief Executive Officer of BHM, Simon Meti, they are pinning their hopes on shareholders; Botswana Development Corporation (BDC) and the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) to source the funds, as BMH does not have the security to secure a loan.

“We currently do not have the security to secure loans hence our reliance on BDC and MoA to assist in this regard,” Meti said. “So far, everything is going accordingly and hopeful that we will implement the strategy soon. If it goes accordingly, we will start to roll it out by end of January of February next year.”

BDC holds 49 percent of BHM while the remainder is owned by the MoA through the Botswana Horticultural Council (BHC). Meti added that once the funds have been secured, the implementation process would take eight weeks to get everything in order.

BHM, with the assistance of its shareholders, has been approaching potential financiers like the National Development Bank (NDB) and Citizen Entrepreneural Development Agency (CEDA).

According to BDC financial results for the year ended April 2014, from the P48 million required, about P15 million will be sourced from the BDC board. The corporation’s management is optimistic that if the wholesale model can be implemented and the company is resourced properly, the market’s performance can be turned around.

For the period ended April 2014, the company reported a loss of P992, 079 which was attributed to the fact that the company has already started to incur costs in the implementation of the new strategy, which included the renovation of the Francistown market.

Repairs and maintance of the Gaborone facility, which are still underway, has also contributed to the loss the company has been posting.