07 Jun 2016

The Lobatse International Beef Festival in Lobatse on Saturday has been hailed as a success.

Speaking on the sidelines of the festival, Assistant Minister of Investment, Trade and Industry, Advocate Sadique Kebonang, expressed gratitude to especially the organisers of the event for choosing Lobatse as a place to host the event.

He said ever since the event was founded four years ago, life has been brought to Lobatse on this particular day.

“It is an initiative that has put Lobatse on the national map,” he noted. He said that he was content that with time the event’s ripple effects would be felt by many and bring a change to the town aesthetics and its people.

The event, he said, was one that celebrates ‘beef’, a product that Botswana has always had even before the discovery of diamonds.

Advocate Kebonang, who is also Lobatse Member of Parliament, said he was happy that the event organisers were especially Batswana who know the significance of beef as a people’s gatherer.

For a long time, he said, Batswana have been sustained by beef. Where there was beef, let alone the presence of cattle, Batswana knew that life was better.

He said the event was most especially beneficial to businesses who pitch stalls and companies which provide their branding merchandise to market themselves on the day.

He therefore encouraged Batswana to take advantage of such events in order to help grow them.

He also encouraged event organisers to market the event well in time, and also find a way of taking it across boarders for companies from outside to be part of it as a way of boosting the country’s foreign direct investment.

For his part, the event organiser, Barolong Seboni said he was happy with the way the event was growing, adding that ever since it started four years ago, it has become better every year.

Seboni said he was content that as an annual event, the festival would grow with support as evidenced by its endorsement by the area MP.

He said he was also grateful to the BOT50 office, who endorsed and gave support to the success of this year’s event in recognition of Batswana’s initiatives in celebrating the country’s 50th independence anniversary.

He said he was more especially grateful for meat lovers who make sure that year in and year out, they make it a date to attend the beef festival to especially enjoy various types of beef cooked in different forms.

The event, he said, has also come as a promotion of domestic tourism, where people are brought from across the country and spend money in Lobatse.

The event culminated with a music festival that saw a heavy line up taking the people up and down with their dance tunes from traditional dance, to house mix, kwaito and jazz sounds.

Captain Dira, Mafitlhakgosi, Sereetsi and the Natives, Harmonic, MMP Family, Mapetla and T.H.A.B.O did what they do best on stage to give beef lovers value for their money. Dj’s Chrispin the Drummer, Kyle, Lefatshe and Juicy also did what they do best on the decks,