27 Mar 2019

The long awaited Milk Afric Dairy Project, which is under construction in Lobatse is nearing completion.

Lobatse Town Council (LTC) mayor Ms Malebogo Kruger revealed on March 26 during a full council meeting that the P120-million project, which was unveiled almost five years ago, was now 95 per cent complete.

Ms Kruger however pointed that transportation of dairy cows for the project from South Africa was delayed due to the outbreak of foot and mouth disease in that country.

She said transportation of the cows would resume once South Africa had cleared the outbreak.
“Immediately after South Africa has declared the disease our dairy cattle will come and the project will start operating,” she said.

The construction of the project, which is a partnership between Milk Afric Company from the US and Botswana Development Corporation, commenced a few years ago.

Once operational, it is expected to have 2 000 dairy cows producing around 30 000 litres of milk per day.
It is expected to significantly address shortage of milk in Botswana and also create over 200 jobs. Ms Kruger also said construction of the Lobatse Leather Park continues.

The leather park project is being constructed on a 38-hectare piece of land at Thema Ward and is envisaged to create thousands of jobs once it is operational next year. It has experienced a series of delays since being conceptualised around six years ago. It is expected to undertake activities in hides and skin collection, leather tanneries as well as manufacturing of leather products.

The mayor further explained that the tender for the fencing project was evaluated and a report had been sent to the board for approval.

“The business case is presently at the draft stage and is being done to determine the scope of the project as project parameters have changed, and is expected to be completed by end of March,” she said.

On other issues, the mayor expressed concern about low collection of property rates by the town council. She said the council managed to make revenue collection of P9.1 million during the 2018/19 financial year, which translates to 60 per cent of income from their own sources.

“The low collection is mainly attributed to our community not paying their rates.

I am therefore urging you councillors to talk to your electorate to pay. Ends