02 Feb 2016

President Lt Gen. Seretse Khama Ian Khama has received letters of credence from the Ambassador of Brazil Mr Ricardo Diniz and the High Commissioner of Mozambique Mr Domingos Fernades.

Speaking in an interview after presenting his letters on Tuesday February 1, Mr Diniz said he was very happy to be back in Botswana after 10 years.

 “I was here in 2006 when the then Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva came for his official visit. I was part of the delegation that came to organise that meeting,” he said.

Even back then, Ambassador Diniz said he was very impressed by how accommodative and helpful Botswana officials at the Southern African Development Community (SADC) were in accommodating all of their requests.

Since then, he said, he has wanted to come to Botswana. “Now, finally 10 years later I am very happy to be back here as the Ambassador of my country,” he said.

He said he has assured President Khama that he would spare no effort to move the good relations that Botswana and Brazil have had for the past few years to a higher level.

He said Brazil has worked with Botswana in HIV/AIDS prevention. “I am hoping to follow up on that,” he said. He said that they will look for opportunities to launch agriculture projects with the government of Botswana.

 He said that they are also interested in poverty eradication as Brazil has been very successful in taking 15 million of its people out of extreme poverty in the past 10 to 15 years.

 “I think that’s the one area that Brazil could offer some help to Botswana, and that’s certainly one area that I intend to explore with the government,” he said.

For his part, High Commissioner of Mozambique Mr Fernades said he had an opportunity to exchange views about the good relations and cooperation between the two countries with President Khama during his brief meeting with him.

He said that they spoke about the situation in Mozambique, especially about the rains in some parts of the country, as well as the current drought situation in Botswana, which he said “is a phenomenon that is affecting the whole Southern African region.”

“We also had an opportunity to exchange views on the relations between the two countries and we are of the view that we have excellent relations,” he said.

He said that Botswana and Mozambique are willing to expand their cooperation to areas such as energy, transport, communication and agriculture.

He said that they could look into increasing Mozambique’s power supply to Botswana.

In the areas of transport and communication, he said Mozambique could be a valuable alternative to Botswana based on its geographical location, as it has ports and railways.

The High Commissioner revealed that the two countries have been exchanging experts in the area of health. Ends