21 Jan 2020

Residents of Paje and Mabeleapudi in Serowe North constituency have been urged to form community trusts, use their indigenous skills and knowledge to earn a living.

Addressing kgotla meetings at the two villages on Monday, Member of Parliament for Serowe North, Mr Baratiwa Mathoothe advised residents to take advantage of the natural resources in their area to generate income for the development of their villages.

He noted that rocks, hills, landscape and trees in their villages could be tourism sites only if there was commitment and will power among residents.

“Tourism is a sector that can make a huge difference in people’s lives, so I urge you to stand up and utilise natural resources found in your area to improve your livelihoods, especially that you have a unique way of doing things,” he said.

He said with commitment, cultural activities would become  major tourism attractions which could earn revenue for the community.

MP Mathoothe informed them that there were many business opportunities to explore such as sand mining, manufacturing paving rocks, hospitality among others, adding that there should be a heritage site in the area which could also attract tourists.

He said communities would benefit by setting up community based organisations (CBO) that could venture into commerce, create employment and promote conservation.

He said though economic opportunities were limited, communities must not lose focus on the importance of environment around them.

“We still have a duty to protect the environment, with or without money we have to be jealous of this environment. Another income opportunity will be to venture into photographic tourism.” the MP said.

He also stated that community trust could also engage in agri-business and exploit its value chain as the country was running short of milk and by-products.

He advised them that through trusts they could construct milk processing plant in their area,   adding that out of the 65 million litres of milk needed annually, Botswana was only able to produce 9 million litres.

He said Batswana had cattle, but were not able to meet demands which had forced the country to import milk and other milk products thereby increasing the import bill.

He said challenges in the dairy farming could be addressed if more farmers engaged in diary farming and the use of advanced technologies to allow Botswana compete in the international markets.

“Dairy enterprise has been a major source of employment and income generation in most of the economies worldwide,” he said, adding that government had identified such as one of the agricultural sub-sectors that could contribute to the diversification of the economy.

He noted that the huge gap between demand and production of milk and its by-products should be seen as an opportunity worth exploring.

He further said the fact that the bulk of the milk consumed in Botswana was not produced locally proved that the market was untapped.

In welcoming the ideas, residents said such was a good initiative which would address unemployment and many other economic challenges  in the village hence reduce over-dependence on government. ENDS