Zimbabwe’s state-media, which has been falling all over to promote the so-called re-opening of the Cold Storage Company, was sold a dud when it announced that CSC-Boustead Beef had opened a butchery at its Bulawayo factory.
The Insider has since established that the butchery at the CSC-Boustead Beef factory is owned by an individual who owns two other butcheries in the city and does not even sell beef supplied by CSC-Boustead Beef because it is not slaughtering any cattle.
The Chronicle last week reported that the livestock value chain in the country was set to benefit from Cold Storage Company-Boustead Beef Company after the company opened a butchery at its factory along Josiah Chinamano Road in Belmont.
It quoted CSC-Boustead Beef company consultant, Reginald Shoko, as saying that the opening of the butchery ws going to improve farmers’ income from their cattle and unlock the value chain of livestock.
“The butchery is going to improve the income of farmers as we are removing the middleman which means more money to farmers. We are pushing for the commercialisation of the communal farmer activities.
“Farmers should benefit from keeping cattle rather than losing their livestock to middlemen for less money. We are here to make sure the cattle keep the farmernot the farmer keeping the cattle,” Shoko was quoted as saying.
The Insider has since established that the butchery is not owned by CSC-Boustead Beef but by an individual who initially refused to talk about the deal with CSC-Boustead Beef but later said he was running the butchery as a franchise.
Shoko confirmed that the butchery was being run as a franchise and more would be opened at CSC plants across the country.
He also admitted that the CSC was currently not slaughtering any cattle but was training its workers for the plant to go full-stream in four to five weeks.
Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga officially re-opened the plant last month and vowed that the CSC would never collapse again.
Sources say the 14 cattle that were slaughtered at the opening were the only CSC-Boustead Beef cattle that have been slaughtered since then.
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