18 Jul 2018

Orapa Letlhakane and Damtshaa Mines general manager, Mr Bakani Motlhabani says Orapa mining region would remain sustainable beyond diamond mining.

Addressing the Editors Forum after the mine tour recently, Mr Motlhabani said the mine had socio-economic mine closure plan that required them to have initiatives that would make the place sustainable beyond diamond mining.

The mine, he said, had embarked on a number of projects, which included a diamond museum that matched international standards and captured the diamond mining history in the region.

The diamond museum, he said would further attract local people for education as well as international communities for tourism. He added that they had also expanded a game park, which he indicated would give them an avenue of a continued economic activity beyond mining.

Mr Motlhabani said the game park would continue with conservation of endangered species programme enhancing tourism potential of the region.

The intention, he said was to make Orapa a gateway to Makgadikgadi.

He said there was also a plan on how mining waste could be deposited towards mine closure to allow them to meet closure requirements.

He explained that a shell would be created around the pit and the entire dump rehabilitated to make sure that the area could be reintegrated, taking the shape of a natural hill.

The pit, he said must be safe and secure, adding it could be converted into a tourism facility to enable tourists to see what the mine looked like.

OLDM, he said had attained certification on the new environment standard of 2015 for the category of the mining operations.

Further, he said OLDM was one of the few organisations that had attained certification on the new environment standards.

He said they had been awarded ISO 14001 on the environment standard and had retained certification on occupational health and safety standards (OHSAS).

To achieve high safety standards, he said the work environment must be safe, adding they would continue to drive the culture of good safe and clean work environment.

Again, he said they subscribed to international standards and were audited early in the year, indicating that auditors gave encouraging feedback since they built a mature system.

The mine, he said was also driving gender diversity and inclusion, indicating that they would like to see more parity equal opportunity for women to men.

The editors’ forum chairperson Mr Spencer Mogapi, also The Telegraph editor, said the interaction was crucial as the outside world expected Botswana media to inform them about the true state of the diamond process.

Mr Mogapi thus commended efforts by Debswana to educate on Botswana diamonds. Ends