Lobatse — The Public Enterprises Evaluation and Privatisation Agency (PEEPA) is aiming to complete the draft of the proposed meat regulatory authority by July this year.
This was said by PEEPA chief executive officer, Mr Ezekiel Moumakwa on March 26 when making presentation to the Lobatse Town Council full council meeting.
Mr Moumakwa explained that the aim was to have a draft bill of the meat regulatory authority presented to Parliament in its July sitting.He said the decision to establish a meat regulatory authority came about after government took a decision to liberalise beef export, which had been a monopoly of Botswana Meat Commission (BMC) for decades.
He explained that as government anticipated that there would be a number of active players in the export of beef once the move to liberalise the market had been completed, it was appropriate for an authority to be established which would deal with the regulation and licensing of players in the beef export market.
"For us to regulate this market we decided to form the meat regulatory authority which will be responsible for the regulatory and the licensing aspects of the facilities which will be used in the business of exporting beef. The value chain of beef starts from the kraals through to cattle transportation, feedlots, abattoirs and the processing, packaging and export of beef," he said.
Mr Moumakwa said the meat regulator would determine the point where regulation would start in the beef industry value chain.
He said they would consider the fact that Botswana's lucrative beef market in the European Union needed to be protected when developing terms and standards of meat regulation.
"We will see whether everyone exporting beef will be subjected to the EU standards which we know are very stringent.
These are the considerations we are making to ensure that the regulation we develop facilitates and also protects the Botswana brand in terms of beef," he said. He said when developing the meat regulator, they would start with beef regulations before bringing on regulations for other kinds of meat as time went on.
Source : BOPA
