I Write What I Like: Uncovering The Evidence On Master Pork’s Shady Dealings
By Diamond Siulapwa
Evidence has been unearthed that confirm our earlier suspicion that Master Pork has actually been buying 6 cut baconer pork from Winelands Abattoir in the Western Cape, RSA at almost double the price they are offering our famers here. What they have evidently done is to buy a lot of baconers from South Africa, while telling the local farmers they cant buy from them because the market is slow, thereby forcing our local pig farmers to accept lower prices.
By Daimone Siulapwa
About a week ago, on the 26th of November, Mater Pork released a statement on the impending reduction on the buying price of baconers from its local customers, citing a series of cooked up reasons.
As I indicated in my last write up, why is Master Pork buy the same baconers from South Africa at a much higher price than from the local farmers?
To understand what Master Pork is doing, we need to define what a 6 cut baconer is. A 6 cut baconer is the whole pig cut into 6 pieces and then boxed and frozen.
Evidence has been unearthed that confirm our earlier suspicion that Master Pork has actually been buying 6 cut baconer pork from Winelands Abattoir in the Western Cape, RSA at almost double the price they are offering our famers here.
What they have evidently done is to buy a lot of baconers from South Africa, while telling the local farmers they cant buy from them because the market is slow, thereby forcing our local pig farmers to accept lower prices.
I just one purchase, Master Pork bought approximately 25,000 Kgs of baconers at a price of R1, 400,000.00 (one million four hundred thousand rands). Add refrigerated transportation costs from RSA to Zambia of approximately UDS 6,500 (R103, 000) and this gives us the total cost of R1,530,000.00. Now lest add duty on pork of 40% coming R612, 000, giving us a total of R2, 142,000.00. Add excise duty of 5% coming to R107,000.
So the total import cost of 25,985 kgs baconers is approximately R2, 250,000, giving us a unit cost of R86 (Kwacha 97) per kg.
Even if Master Pork wants to claim that the cost of R1,285,393.98 is all they paid for 25,985 kgs, it still gives us the cost per kg of about R50 (Kwacha K56.30).
As earlier stated, as a consequence this has caused a ripple effect: small scale Zambian farmers have been pushed out of business, the prices of stock feed has gone up and the number of those employed in the pork subsector has kept on reducing thus reducing income in most households.
Zambian pig farmers, with the help of our government must help to sort this issues immediately before more of our farmers are condemned into poverty.
