04 Sep 2019

Minister of Agricultural Development and Food Security, Mr Fidelis Molao says the government will intervene to address the drought hard hit Ngamiland region.

The drought resulted in many water sources drying up and water species exposed thereby posing danger to the lives of the community and livestock.

Mr Molao and his entourage from Gaborone had toured Lake Ngami and Nxaraga to appreciate the situation where livestock and wild animals’ carcasses are found in and outside the water sources while some were trapped in the mud.

After the tour, he held a meeting at Sehithwa kgotla which was attended by dikgosi, farmers’ committee, Village Development Committee representatives and public servants, where he informed them that the situation required an urgent attention.

The purpose of the meeting was to appreciate, assess the situation and also solicit ideas from the leadership on what could be done to address the problem.

Minister Molao said the situation at the lake called for all to join hands and see how best it could be dealt with to reduce the burden upon the communities who mostly depended solely on cattle rearing.

He appreciated that government had declared 2018/19 a drought year following consideration of the drought and household food security assessment and analysis report and introduced relief measures such as 35 per cent subsidy and the P3 increase at Botswana Meat Commission (BMC) with a view to encourage farmers to sell their cattle to reduce the impact of drought.

The government, he said also encouraged farmers to form syndicates so that they could be allocated boreholes.

Mr Molao said the government was aware of the challenges faced by the region, such as the re-occurrence of livestock diseases and shortage of water which had affected livestock and wildlife.

He also noted that some fishermen continued to fish in the lake and questioned the hygiene situation more so that there were many animals which had died in the lake.

The minister called for the removal of carcasses at the lake and urged the leadership to come up with ways on how they could prevent livestock from going to the lake because failure to act would result in more deaths.

He acknowledged that it was impossible to monitor the lake on daily basis but stressed the need to come up with some interventions to adress the challenge.

Mr Molao also appreciated efforts by public servants to manage the situation and assured them support going forward.

He said communities’ lives and their livestock welfare were priority hence they should all join forces to manage the situation.

Kgosi Ebineng Potsoeng of Tsau village appreciated the minister’s visit and suggested that a research be conducted to establish the root cause of the severe drought in the region.

He appreciated that in the past, the lake experienced extended periods of drought but the impact was not devastating as compared to the current situation.

He said their cattle died but not at the high rate as it was happening this time.

Kgosi Potsoeng said elephants had contributed to the current situation at the lake as they had caused havoc and left big holes which trapped animals.

He called on government to relocate all elephants from the community to wildlife management areas and provide them with water. Kgosi Potsoeng said they could not request government to fence the lake because elephants would destroy the fence. ENDS