The BCP wants money redirected from FMD command centres to veterinary operations, while beef producers say the response has failed to deliver practical help for farmers.
SESUPO RANTSIMAKO
The Botswana Congress Party (BCP) says it will push in Parliament for the immediate abolition of national and district foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) command centres, accusing them of consuming scarce public resources while the outbreak threatens livestock livelihoods.
In a statement, BCP shadow minister of lands and agriculture Dr Kesitegile Gobotswang said the party’s parliamentary caucus would demand a full account of how the outbreak took hold and how public money had been spent responding to it.
Veterinary Resources
The BCP described the command centres as political structures imposed on a technical veterinary problem.
“They manufacture red tape, meetings and photographs while consuming resources that belong to the Department of Veterinary Services,” the party said.
It argued that the Department of Veterinary Services (DVS) had the statutory mandate and professional expertise to combat FMD, and that resources should go directly to disease-control operations rather than additional layers of coordination.
Farmers Await Help
Botswana National Beef Producers Union (BNBPU) spokesperson Alfred Pilane said the union’s experience working with the command centre suggested that the response remained inadequate.
Pilane said farmers had expected practical solutions, including help to find alternative markets for producers affected by restrictions and market closures.
“We thought the centre is meant to bring solutions and facilitate how farmers could sell to other markets, but nothing has happened,” he said.
Although the union works with the centre, Pilane said the intensity of the response was insufficient and unsatisfactory.
Four Outbreaks
The BCP said eight months of command-centre coordination had delivered four outbreaks, the closure of the European market to Botswana beef and a spreading southern front.
“The structure has failed on its own terms,” the party said.
Gobotswang said the government could not keep spending money on structures that had failed to contain the outbreak.
The party called for every pula to be redirected to DVS surveillance, early detection, rapid response, biosecurity and the rehabilitation of cordon fences.