Minister of Industrialisation and Trade, Lucia Iipumbu said her ministry and the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism has agreed on co-financing the rehabilitation of water supply points at the rundown State-owned Kavango Cattle Ranch (KCR) in the Kavango West Region.

Iipumbu added in a statement issued on Saturday that the farm, administered by the Namibia Industrial Development Agency (NIDA), has been in a bad state due to alleged mismanagement.

Recently, 18 cattle carcasses alleged to have died of thirst and neglect were found at the farm during a visit by the regional leadership. They also found most of the dams empty and that workers had moved out, reportedly to avoid elephant attacks.

“Both parties have secured all necessary internal approval and endorsement. Both ministries will finalise a memorandum of agreement to ensure a management plan to support both breeding and nature-based tourism enterprise development,” the minister said.

Iipumbu said the environment ministry through the Game Products Trust Fund will assist in averting further mortalities.

She said the upgrading and optimisation of the cattle ranch was identified as a flagship project for value addition in the Growth at Home execution strategy for industrialisation.

“MIT also developed a business plan for the cattle ranch which is premised around four areas – an abattoir, meat processing facility, fodder production and game reserve,” Iipumbu said.

Given the state the cattle ranch is in identifies the need for additional public investment to bring the facility to some level of development to ensure the optimisation of private sector investment attraction, she added.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency