29 Aug 2024

Government has spent over P6.8 million to transport cattle from the United States of America.

This was said by Minister of Agriculture, Honourable Fidelis Molao when answering a question in Parliament on Tuesday.

He added that over P11 million was also used to transport both cattle and goats from Australia and there were no sheep in the consignment.

“It is not true that some of the imported semen had gone bad and this was due to a breakdown in the maintenance of cold chain for semen preservation.

The amount of semen affected equated to less than one per cent of the total semen balances at the storage facilities,” he said.

He indicated that in monetary value, semen worth over P1.7 million was lost.

The minister was answering a question from Francistown South legislator, Mr Wynter Mmolotsi, who had asked the minister to state how much the ministry had spent in transporting cattle from USA, including cattle, sheep and goats from Australia.

Mr Mmolotsi also wanted to know whether it was true that some of the imported semen had gone bad, if so, what caused the problem and how much was lost in the monetary terms. ENDS