The Department of Veterinary Services (DVS) in the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) has exposed Botswana’s livestock, especially cattle which has by far shown to be the secondary source of revenue after diamonds, to the risk of being banned from the European beef market.
The situation is such a concern to best practice, the Office of the Auditor General had to advise the department to embark on a wholesome review of a lot of their processes before things could get off hand.
The Livestock Identification and Trace back Systems (LITS) refers to a Radio Frequency Identification Device (RFID) based system, which has the ability to individually indentify animals and trace them back to their point of origin.
In Botswana it is currently only used in cattle but with the possibility of extending it to other livestock.
According to a report of the OAG, DVS management had not analysed the risk that might hamper successful implementation of the LITS project, when it was initiated. This resulted in Government losing millions of pula through continuous failure of the procured equipment.
In the same vein, the non-functionality of 21 docking stations naturally led to inefficiency in customer service delivery.
As to what prompted their investigation, the Auditor General said in his report, “The audit was motivated by the public outcry on the high rate of cattle theft and foot and mouth disease. Furthermore, approximately P160 million was spent on LITS project.”
The scope of the audit covered the financial years 2000/01 to 2007/2008, and the major aspects that it looked into were planning, implementation and compliance to various procedures used in implementing LITS.
It was revealed by the audit that the implementation plan developed by the DVS did not show the actual commencement and implementation dates for specific activities. The OAG held that the existence of a categorical implementation plan and schedule of specific activities was vital for time critical tasks as well as for monitoring whether activity was carried out on schedule.
The initial idea behind spending huge amounts of money in the project was that all livestock transactions which the LITS was designed to perform, be entirely processed electronically through the system.
However, OAG observed equipment failure which hampered DVS efficiency in customer service.
“For instance, a perusal of documents revealed that about 90 percent of cattle movement permits were issued manually due to equipment failure and that sometimes led to non-conformance to cattle traceability standards, as confirmed through interviews at BMC,” said the Auditor General.
To compound matters, the OAG found because to worry in the fact, the huge amount of money government invested in the project, the department of veterinary services adopted a business as usual approach, when they should have undertaken a formal LITS Post implementation review for phase 2.
“This had the effect of denying prime stakeholders sufficient information to make informed decisions about the success of the project as a whole,” read the report of the Auditor General.
Dr Letlhogile Oarabile, Deputy Director Export/Import Traceability, in the MOA told The Telegraph that at the time of introducing the LITS, there was no country with a similar livestock management system to bench mark with.
He argued that it was therefore difficult to properly plan for the project, with the consequence that some aspects were grossly underestimated, “more especially since our livestock census figures were later found to have been higher than originally planned, so datelines could not be met.”
 For these reasons, according to Oarabile, Phase II had to go on without any review done.
