21 Feb 2019

Bathoen II Trust secretary Ms Malebogo Modise has defended the fees charged for use of the Mmakgodumo dam area.

This comes after some members of the public expressed disapproval of the service fees charged for activities such as weddings, picnics, birthday parties as well as fishing.

In an interview, Ms Modise said Mmakgodumo Dam was one of the tourism heritage sites that Bangwaketse should pride themselves in, and therefore needed proper care and maintenance.

Therefore, she said the set fees were intended to help with maintaining the area to ensure its safety and cleanliness. She said contrary to popular belief, the fees had been there even with the previous board, only that implementation of the rules was weak. “As the current board we realised that the area has got tourism potential and therefore we decided to enforce the existing rules and also engaged the police to help us in implementation,” she said.

She further said residents were also complaining about litter and vandalism around that area, so this is an effort to generate funds towards the maintenance and safety of the dam area. She said they engaged security personnel on a short term basis for the December holidays because it was the peak period, while they were still considering engaging people full time.

“We are still looking at our budget to see if we can afford to engage security on full time basis, but in the meantime we have the Trust officials patrolling the area to ensure compliance,” she noted. She said the revised rates for use of Mmakgodumo Dam were currently at P500 for a wedding church service, P1 200 for the whole day wedding, P50 per person for fishing while cars are allowed at P20 each.

She also said the charges for a picnic or birthday session was P500 per day with P150 refundable if people leave the area clean. BOKHUTLO