13 Nov 2019

Lack of water and electricity has forced a temporary shutdown of a viable community business venture hatched with good intentions.

Four years ago, Mapanda Conservation Trust of Lepokole village hatched a brick-moulding venture that addressed shortage of bricks in the village, but the business enterprise was brought to a halt two years ago, owing to shortage of water and electricity.

Before Mapanda Brickmoulding Project came to operation, the people of Lepokole bought bricks from Bobonong (35 kilometres away) or even as far as Selebi Phikwe (more than 110 kilometres away).

Residents were relieved of the challenges and costs of buying from afar, and thereby enjoying homemade quality bricks, according to Trust treasurer, Mr Nkadimang Shaka.

He added that some destitute persons’ houses in the village enjoyed a good supply of bricks from Mapanda Brickmoulding Project when they were built.

Although the project was started when the two utilities were still not available in the village, the brickmoulding business was booming until the trust felt overstretched by sourcing water, that was in short supply, from faraway places.

This led to frequent and high number of bricks getting damaged easily.

A visit to the site showed a good number of damaged bricks, hundreds of them, piled over one another.

Mr Shaka told BOPA that they had initially fostered relations with some borehole owners for supply of water, but the relations were strained due to dwindling ground water that forced borehole owners to prioritise their livestock over brickmoulding.

The Trust was forced to close down temporarily, though not for a specific period, until they could get a reliable source of water and electricity for a fully functional venture, according to Mr Shaka.

Although electricity connection could take longer since their workshop is considered outside Botswana Power Corporation map, he was optimistic that the water challenge could be addressed sooner.

At the time of the interview, some Water Utilities Corporation employees were hard at work extending the water pipeline to the area that covers the village industrial site.

With the reticulation, Mr Shaka was buoyant they will immediately connect water to take off where they left.

However, electricity will remain a challenge since the national power supplier is reportedly charging the trust P43 000 for the transformer.

Prior to temporarily closing down the business, the trust had already erected a building that housed an office and a storeroom.

The building has been wired and is awaiting electricity connection.

In future, after addressing water and electricity challenges, the treasurer said that they would consider a hardware business, with the aim of creating a one stop centre for building materials.

The Trust will also erect some offices where their businesses will operate from, to help ease poor record-keeping among other challenges.  ENDS