22 Jun 2017

Minister of Environment, Natural Resources Conservation and Tourism, Mr Tshekedi Khama says his ministry has secured P62 million for various activities under his ministry, chief amongst them anti-poaching and elephants control.

Addressing his electorate at Mosenya and Rakgomo kgotla meetings, Minister Khama, who is also the Member of Parliament for Serowe West said that from the P62 million, his ministry has purchased three used helicopters which would help in driving the elephants back to their habitat.

Initially, Mr  Khama said, his ministry sought the expertise and resources from Botswana Defence Force (BDF) to drive the destructive elephants back to national parks to evade human wildlife conflict.

He defended the purchase of used helicopters saying that they were in good conditions and were good to perform their functions.

Again, the ministry would engage and train 100 participants to help the ministry in the process of driving animals back to national parks, a duty that has been performed by BDF staff, he said.

He added that the BDF would equip the 100 hired personnel to help discharged their duties diligently.

MP Khama further said he would seek supplementary budget in November session of Parliament, where part of the funds would be used for compensating farmers.

He revealed that from the P21 million compensation fund for this year, the ministry is only left with P10 million after spending P11 million on outstanding compensations.

He noted that the compensation fund has been increasing annually due to the increasing havoc caused mainly by elephants.

Mr Khama showed that in the financial year 2014/15, his ministry received P4million, 2015/16 they received P7 million and P9 million in 2016/17.

On other issues, he parried accusations leveled against him in relation to stopping fishing at Lake Ngami.

He clarified that his intention was clearly to protect Batswana from exploitation by foreign traders.

Consequently, Mr Khama said that he met with Okavango Research Institute recently to discuss matters pertaining to sale of fish at Lake Ngami.

He said his concerns were the sale of dried fish by locals to foreigners at alarming lower prices that ended up enriching the foreigners at their native countries.

He cited that local fishermen sold fish at P5 maximum price whilst the foreigners, in big trucks would amass fish and sell at P25 per fish.

Annually, Mr Khama contended that the foreign traders ended up accumulating about P1.5 million in Botswana whilst locals made about P200 000. BOPA