The Botswana Agricultural Marketing Board (BAMB) has achieved a revenue growth of 16 percent to reach P312 million for its 2019 full year against the previous year sales revenue of P269 million.
From the board’s fresh financial results, this increase in revenue was attributable to focus being placed on financial efficiencies, strengthening relationships with key customers and intensified marketing strategies to strengthen the Board’s footprint in the market.
The outgoing marketing boards’ chairperson Dr Gloria Somolekae attributed this volume contribution to the border closure initiative which resulted in substantial uptake of local produce by commercial millers.
On the administrative costs, there was a slight growth of three percent which is in line with the Board`s efforts to contain costs within a tolerance level of 10 percent annually
Dr Somolekae pins on the hopes that, “the Board will continue to build on this performance going forward to play a vital role in the commercialization of the agricultural sector and the diversification of the national economy.”
The Strategic Grain Reserves Management fees contributed five percent to the Board`s total revenues, and were above budget by 114 percent. The actual was invoiced at P1,39million per month based on 10 percent of total storage rental charged for physical SGR stocks held. Under the same reporting period, the Board also managed to significantly reduce its borrowings by 60 percent from P172million to P103million. During the 2018/2019 harvesting season, a total of 41, 1 metric tonnes (mt) of grains were purchased, a jump from 26,4mt purchased in the prior year to that.
BAMB purchased 28,7mt of sorghum from farmers as compared to 18,2mt in the previous year. In the years 2018 and 2019, the Board did not receive millet and sunflower from farmers due to limited production of these crops. Maize purchases accounted for 22% percent of the total purchases in 2019 when compared to 17 percent in 2018. Pulses contributed 8 percent ( 3,2mt) to total grain purchases in 2019 when compared to 14 percent (3,8mt) in 2018.
At the Boards’ media brief a fortnight ago, BAMB CEO, Leonard Morakaladi emphasized that relationship management is very key to BAMB, hence it has become paramount to strengthen relations with farmers.
BAMB boss also said as a result of cash-flow issues, the money is tied on grains.