Corruption allegations fly high at meat board
By Staff Reporter

Corruption allegations are flying high at Namibia’s biggest red meat producer and supplier, the Meat Board of Namibia. The allegations involve a local audit company, (name supplied) which has conducted several study projects for the Meat Board without going through tender procedures.

It appears that the study projects were carried out without anyone bothering to go through the normal way of outsourcing such services, which usually requires tender invitations to avoid wrong doing or allay fears of corruption.

The situation has been made worse by another allegation that the local audit company that has carried out such studies has awarded a bursary to a child of one of the senior managers at Meat Boart, who is now studying at Stellenbosch University in South Africa.

The child landed a bursary straight from the Windhoek High School, and this has puzzled several employees at the Meat Board, who now see something fishy about the whole deal and want the case to be investigated.

“Normally,” said one employee, “such (study) projects are advertized and tender invited to deal with such a situation. But in this case we are left perplexed by this move which has been going on for some years now. Why do we skip tender procedures?

“We need some guidelines on how we should deal with such issues. One cannot just wake up one day and say this or that study should be carried by this or that company. It even raises questions as to how and why a child of a senior manager was awarded that bursary.

“What does it tell us as ordinary people? What criteria was used to pick her out of so many children? Coming as it does from a company that has preferably landed such study projects, something somewhere is rotten.

“We have people running this company as if it were a private company. This should not be allowed. This is a public company which must be run like any other public company. If we allow things to go the way they are going, we will find ourselves in a terrible situation.”

Namibia Today is in possession of the name of the company that has been awarded “study projects” without going through tender procedures. The name of the child of one of the senior managers who landed herself a lucrative bursary to study at Stellenbosch has also been supplied.

Contacted for comment, Meat Board General Manager, Paul Strydom, refused to discuss the allegations, saying that he first needed to know who the sources and the authors of the letters were, which Namibia Today is in possession of, before commenting on allegations.

“I am not in a position to answer you now,” said Strydom. “Tell me who those people are or who wrote those letters which you claim to have in your possession before I discuss these things with you. Bye.”

Namibia produces some of the best red meat in the world, grown in a natural environment, with animals eating natural vegetation, uncontaminated by growth stimulants, antibiotics or animal by-products.

Namibia’s red meat is validated by an assurance scheme, known as the Farm Assured Namibian Meat Scheme, FANMEAT, which is the first comprehensive scheme of its kind in Africa. FANMEAT falls under the Meat Board of Namibia.

The scheme validates the production process, starting on the farm and continuing to the consumer. It ensures that the product is safe, healthy and of prime quality.