BULAWAYO-The Cold Storage Company (CSC) of Zimbabwe has reiterated its commitment to purchasing live cattle from Foot and Mouth (FMD) infested areas in Botswana for slaughter at its state of the art facilities in Bulawayo.
This was revealed by CSC Director, Isaiah Machingura during a tour of the facility by a visiting delegation from Ngamiland, which had visited Zimbabwe on a bench marking tour of the country’s leather tanning and allied industries. Machingura said CSC has even greater capacity to purchase more cattle from Botswana as it has additional plants in Chinhoyi, Masvingo,Kadoma and Marondera. However, the Bulawayo plant is the busiest as it kills about 800 cattle per day.
Botswana and Zimbabwe struck a deal for supplies of FMD infected cattle a few years back. The agreement, which involved sending live cattle from Botswana to CSC’s slaughter facilities in Bulawayo, was halted after the company failed to pay P1million in outstanding debt for imported cattle. The deal provided some respite for farmers in Ngamiland, who were left in the lurch after the outbreak of FMD, as they could not sell their cattle to Botswana Meat Commission (BMC).
