Meatco CEO Mwilima Mushokabanji has revealed that as part of Meatco’s long term strategy to profitability, Meatco’s debts with commercial banks have to date been reduced by 70 percent.
He in a statement this week also revealed that between 2019 and 2021 – the harshest period in Namibia’s drought season, Meatco paid its producers approximately N$2 billion.
“At present, Meatco remains the only public enterprise in agro-processing that is able to penetrate and compete in complex, advanced economies such as the USA, Europe and China, to mention but a few. With our current business model, Meatco will without a doubt remain competitive and sustainable,” Mushokabanji said.
He went on to highlight that there is a myriad of empirical evidence proving that Meatco has consistently been paying competitive prices and stabilising the livestock industry as per its mandate.
“Meatco wishes to assure its stakeholders especially the suppliers of raw material to the company that through strategic interventions, Meatco ensures a competitive price in response to the market and will continue to maximise producer returns as per its mandate.
“Meatco upholds the highest standards of governance which amongst others includes disclosure of its audited financial reports as per the dictates of the law governing its operations. The afore-going disclosures have been published consistently for the past 15 years,” he explained.
As a commercial public enterprise, Meatco is mandated to serve, promote and coordinate the interests of livestock producers and strive for the stabilisation of the meat industry in the national interest; to optimally utilise and maintain abattoirs and other meat factories in the public interest; and to market products within Namibia and elsewhere to the best advantage of the producers of livestock.
“Meatco continues to drive an inclusive agenda that the Northern Communal Farmers must be mainstreamed into the Namibian economy. As part of Meatco’s quest to mainstream the Northern Communal Areas into the mainstay of the country’s economy, the Meatco NCA subsidiary was established in 2020, since which, the West African and Middle East markets were discovered.”
Responding to recent media reports, the CEO said that Meatco takes serious exception to the allegations of possible liquidation and would like to put it on record that such allegations are propagated by agents of doom with a myopic view about the internal operations of Meatco.
“We would want to give re-assurance to all our main stakeholders that agriculture remains the backbone of the Namibian economy. Sectoral cohesion and industry collaboration is critical in crafting a more competitive and more sustainable meat industry.
“As such, Meatco’s role has always been to stabilise the industry by paying competitive prices to our farmers who have been struggling to rebuild their herds since the 2019 drought spell,” concluded Mushokabanji.