26 Aug 2020

Chobe District chairperson, Mr Amos Mabuku, has told councillors that the district remains on high alert against the COVID-19 pandemic.

Addressing a full council meeting on August 25, Mr Mabuku said Kasane Primary Hospital was one of the COVID-19 testing centres in the country and testing was running smoothly with a turnaround time of less than 24 hours.

He said 6 803 tests had been conducted with a two per cent positivity rate from the truck drivers and most of them were safely repatriated to their home countries.

He, however, said two COVID-19 local cases were recorded in Chobe and contact tracing was done with all the contacts testing negative.

“All of us should make more effort to protect ourselves at home, in schools, at work and in the business facilities that we visit,” he said.

Councillor Mabuku noted with concern that some facilities, especially large chain stores, did not observe social distancing and he encouraged all to police themselves 

He commended frontline workers, office of district commissioner, immigration, Botswana Police Service and Botswana Defence Force for their selfless service during this crucial time.

Mr Mabuku, who is also councillor for Chobe Enclave West, appreciated those who donated towards the fight against COVID-19 at district and national level.

He said Botswana International University of Science and Technology (BIUST) donated 1 000 liquid and 500 bar soaps manufactured by their institution and indicated willingness to come back and teach those interested in learning how to make soaps.

Updating the councillors on the COVID-19 food relief assistance, Councillor Mabuku said 6 820 households were assessed and 4 448 were assisted at a total expenditure of over P4 million.

He indicated that distribution of the food hampers exercise had a few setbacks such as shortage of food commodities at the only local wholesale distributor that led to partial packaging in some families, the need for individual assistance by beneficiaries and non-communication of changes of physical address by some beneficiaries.

He explained that all households that were partially rationed had the remaining food commodities delivered to them on June 5 and individuals who came to report that they had moved from their previous physical address were assisted accordingly.

He said COVID-19 impacted negatively on different sectors, adding that education was on the hard hit sector as schools were closed prematurely and to date pre-primary children and those with special needs had not yet resumed classes.

He said the academic performance was affected, citing that at the end of June, the Chobe region did not meet both the regional and national target of 80 per cent and only two primary schools met the national target.

At secondary level, he said, the two schools, Chobe and Liswaani I junior secondary schools did not meet the 50 per cent set target but scored 31 and 29.2 per cent respectively.

On different note, he commended the school authorities for efforts to position all schools to meet new safety standards as class sizes had been reduced and school desks in some primary schools were split into two so as to observe social distancing.

On the tourism industry, the council chairperson said it recorded massive job and revenue losses and the hardest hit areas were accommodation, transportation, tour guiding and travel services.

He said for the three months period starting April, the occupancy rate of the 398 lodging facilities stood at 3.5 per cent compared to a normal occupancy rate of between 43-45 per cent and the employment numbers dropped by 486.

Councillor Mabuku, however, said the Botswana Tourism Organisation (BTO) continued to explore meaningful ways to revitalize the domestic travel industry and one of the notable development was the voluntary reduction in accommodation and activity prices by operators in the district in an effort to make travel affordable to Batswana.

“The fruits of this initiative were visible during the President’s Day holidays as Batswana from across the country visited Chobe District,” he said. Ends