Africa-Press – Namibia. THE Namibia Local Business Association (Naloba) has accused the minister of agriculture, water and land reform, Calle Schlettwein, of wanting to liquidate the state-owned meat-processing and marketing entity, the Meat Corporation of Namibia.
Contacted for a comment, ministry spokesperson Jona Musheko said there are no facts to back this up.
This follows Schlettwein describing Meatco as a limping organisation which is in intensive care.
The minister made these remarks while delivering his staff address in Windhoek last month.
Schlettwein warned there would come a time when the government would have to make “a hard decision” on the limping organisation.
“Money is running out, and it will dry up,” Schlettwein said.
Naloba vice president Peter Amadhila said the association have noted that there are issues behind trying to kill government companies to pave the way for either foreign-owned companies or private-owned companies.
“We are condemning the criticism by the minister on Meatco. All these days he is just attacking Meatco for reasons known only to him. He wants to liquidate Meatco in order to give a way to a foreign company,” he said.
Amadhila said instead of Schlettwein criticising, he should invest more effort in reviving the enterprise, or he warned it would become like Air Namibia.
“At the end of the day, it is just the government going down every day. People say the government is going into the mud,” he said.
Amadhila said when the government fails, or things go wrong, people blame the leadership.
“They must come to terms and see how they can revive the entity. Not to criticise it,” he said.
The Namibian last month reported that the Namibia National Farmers Union (NNFU) accused Meatco of sidelining communal farmers south and north of the veterinary cordon fence.
The union said farmers who are members of Meatco have raised concerns with the union leadership regarding the entity.
“It targeted specific commercial farmers Meatco is paying high prices to. The trend has been going on for long now regarding selective engagement.
“Meatco is in the process of dissolving the northern communal area (NCA) subsidiary, which is the only means to serve the northern farmers. No consultation with farmers, but currently [they are] doing it secretly,” the NNFU said.
The union accused Meatco of paying very high and incomparable prices for commercial farmers and very low prices for communal farmers in the NCAs, including communal farmers south of the veterinary cordon fence.
The sustainability of Meatco is a big question mark, with increasing poor management and performance of the organisation. [They have] ever increasing debts and [receive] continuous bailouts by the government, which never happened before, the NNFU said.
Meatco chief executive officer Mwilima Mushokabanji disagreed with Schlettwein’s assertion that the parastatal is in intensive care and that its abattoirs are in the mortuary when speaking to The Namibian last month.
“That’s his own opinion and perception. I don’t see abattoirs in a mortuary, I see opportunities,” he said.
He said Meatco had managed to establish lucrative markets in Ghana, China, Angola and the United Kingdom, something that was never done before. Soon, Meatco will start exporting meat to the Middle East, he added.
Mushokabanji noted that Meatco had not been able to slaughter a substantive number of cattle as the country had lost 50% of its cattle due to the 2019 drought.
However, Meatco is in the process of starting to slaughter 52 000 cattle per year, he said.
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