24 Nov 2016

President Lieutenant General Dr Seretse Khama Ian Khama says putting BCL Mine under provisional liquidation was a painful decision, but a necessary one for government because the mine had become unviable and costly to operate.

A liquidator, Mr Nigel Dixon-Warren, was appointed in October to handle the process of liquidating BCL Mine and its subsidiaries with a final report expected in February next year.

Addressing members of the High Level Consultation Committee (HLCC) yesterday morning in Gaborone, President Khama said the mine was draining government resources.

“One painful decision we had to make was the placing of BCL in Selebi Phikwe under provisional liquidation. This is something which from my point of view was not unexpected. BCL has been a history of ups and downs and in recent times there have been more downs than ups, and we have as a government been putting in capital injection into BCL over the years,” President Khama said.

President Khama said while government acquired loans in the past to fund operations of BCL Mine, falling commodity prices and other factors made it difficult to sustain the mine.

Faced with the prospect of continuing to invest more funds into an unprofitable entity, President Khama said government found it necessary to enter provisional liquidation.

He also said the mine itself was no longer viable as it was an old mine which had become unsafe.

“We got to a stage where we said as government, do we keep on pouring our resources into a dying entity,” he said.

He explained that government was working closely with the liquidator to cushion workers from the impacts of job losses, while an economic recovery programme for the area was being put in place.

Regarding the Economic Stimulus Programme (ESP), President Khama explained that implementation of projects was at various stages across different sectors which include education, health, tourism, agriculture and trade.

“Benefits of ESP are starting to take place in various communities. So, we want to reach further to more communities. Starting next year, we are going to put in place additional projects to cover more communities,” he said.

He said those would be community focused projects like office and housing projects.

Chairperson of Business Botswana, Mr Lokwalo Mosienyane said the private sector played a critical role in stimulating a balanced and sustainable economy, and should therefore be afforded opportunity to have more input in design and development of government projects.

He also cautioned about what he termed price distortion at public procurement level. He said the practice had become common in the country, fearing it could result in corruption. BOPA