Musho's Meatco praise doesn't add up
The Namibian Sun published a frontpage article stating that Cabinet adopted a resolution on 28 April noting that Meatco's 2024/25 annual report omitted credit due to former chief executive Mwilima Mushokabanji (Musho) for his extraordinary contribution to increasing revenue from N$1,202 million to N$1,865 million.
Cabinet directed that the agriculture ministry ensure Musho is credited for the 55% increase in revenue.
The Namibian Sun's editorial went further, with Wonder Guchu writing: "Cabinet deserves commendation for directing that Meatco's 2024/25 annual report be amended before it is tabled in Parliament to recognise former chief executive Mwilima Mushokabanji for leading the corporation when it recorded a remarkable 55% increase in revenue and returned to profitability."
Musho led Meatco for five years, from January 2020 to the end of January 2025, coinciding with Meatco's financial year. Was the increase in turnover really extraordinary, and did Musho return Meatco to profitability? Should the annual report be amended to include these achievements?
Meatco's revenue rises during national droughts, especially given its quasi-monopolistic position. The graph below shows Meatco's turnover since 2005. During a drought, revenue increases because producers are forced to market cattle and reduce their stock. This happened in 2015 (N$1,803 million), 2019 (N$1,784 million) and 2024 (N$1,865 million).
The 55% increase in revenue during the final year of Musho's term was a result of adverse climatic conditions, not an extraordinary marketing effort. Directing praise at Musho on this basis is the wrong call in a professional governance context.
The second question raised by the Namibia Sun's frontpage article is whether Meatco actually returned to profitability. Is Meatco profitable in 2024/25? Yes: it recorded a profit after tax of N$43.8 million in 2024/25, against a loss of N$67.5 million in 2023/24. The Sun reported the 2024/25 profit as N$105.7 million, but that figure was profit before tax. Is this the true picture, as reflected in the income statement?
Meatco received a government grant of N$86 million in 2023, N$125.5 million in 2024 and N$216.6 million in
2025, N$428.1 million from Namibian taxpayers over three years. Strip out these grants from the after-tax profit and loss figures, and the picture changes entirely: accumulated losses since 2021 stand at N$893.5 million.
Also unreported was that bad debts totalled N$26.1 million in 2023/24 and N$81.4 million in 2024/25. Why is Meatco making such significant losses? The answer is simple: inefficient and poor management, and poor governance.
Beef slaughterhouses and abattoirs are a low-margin, high-volume business, so an international benchmark gross profit margin of around 12% is reasonable.
The average gross profit margin declined drastically under Musho's leadership, sitting 8.2 percentage points below the benchmark. Namibia exports beef and must therefore benchmark itself against international beef exporters. The average gross profit margin in the decade before Musho was 8.4%, falling to 3.76% during his five-year tenure. A gross profit margin below 5% indicates an abattoir is not commercially viable, and points to ineffective, poor management.
Future Cabinet submissions must be better researched and argued. Otherwise, taxpayers who supported Meatco with N$428.1 million will feel betrayed to see poor management praised. Newspapers, too, should not applaud blindly when public funds are misused.
Rainer Ritter is an independent economic analyst.
