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THE Agriculture Marketing Authority (AMA) is planning to float bills to raise $5 million to recapitalise the Cold Storage Company (CSC), an official said yesterday.AMA chief executive officer Rockie Mutenha told a Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Lands and Agriculture that money raised through the bills would assist CSC to stock livestock for slaughter at its abattoirs.

“We are planning to float bills to raise $5 million to assist the Cold Storage Company for slaughter stock. This will increase their capacity utilisation at the company which is operating at the moment at 10 to 15 percent,” he said.

Mutenha said AMA hopes to capacitate CSC so that it can compete with private abattoirs.

“The thrust on CSC is that over the years  we’ve seen the proliferation of private abattoirs    coming to compete with the CSC and since  the dollarisation of the economy we have seen  that the CSC like GMB has been facing challenges  in terms of raising funding for them to be able to buy animals especially for slaughter and we will also see utilisation of the abattoirs which are under the CSC.”

As such, Mutenha said, AMA was going into the market to raise funding for the CSC using the  same principles it has employed in raising  funding for grain procurement by the Grain Marketing Board.

He said CSC would use proceeds from their abattoirs to repay the $5 million bills.

“We would like to see CSC going out into the various farming communities to purchase animals, perhaps temporarily feed them or hold them under the various ranches, which they have.

“When they are fed they are then slaughtered and then put onto the market and sold and funds used to repay the bills,” he said.
In 2010, under the first phase of the restructuring programme, the government prioritised the privatisation and commercialisation of 10 parastatals with CSC being one of them as part of efforts to improve operational efficiency. – New Ziana.