25 Nov 2020

 A plan by the government to diversify the economy through dam tourism is gaining momentum.

Updating councilors on dam tourism during the ongoing Selebi Phikwe Town Council (SPTC) full council meeting on November 25, SPTC Mayor Mr Lucas Modimana said the tendering process for the identification of investors to develop and manage tourism sites identified in the Letsibogo Dam Tourism Master Plan had commenced.

He said the site visit and tender issuance was yet to be completed by end of November whilst the tender evaluation and award would be completed end of January 2021.

Mr Modimana said the country’s biggest dam, Dikgathong in Robelela, would also benefit in this regard, adding that Botswana Tourism Organisation (BTO) was running a tender for the strategic environmental assessment.

He noted that there were certain zones within the dam’s masterplan that had been reserved for allocation to communities and as such the process to mobilise the community and facilitate investment within these zones would be coordinated through Community Based Natural Resource Management office at the Ministry of Environment Natural Resource Conservation and Tourism.

Regarding dam tourism at Thune dam, Mr Modimana said the Thune dam Master Plan Implementation process was to commence during the current financial year, subject to finalisation of dam lease area application.

He said dam tourism was expected to diversify the economy through citizen economic empowerment, employment creation, and overall growth of the tourism sector.

On other issues, he said Selebi Phikwe town embarked on a Local Economic Development (LED) strategy to propel its aspirations through this initiative.

Mr Modimana said the district was recently trained on District Population Development Profiling, done in partnership with Ministry of Finance and Economic Development and also undertook the Local Economic Assessment training.

These two activities, he said would be handy in guiding the district to develop its LED strategy and future plans such as NDP12 and Urban Development Plan 5.

Mr Modimana further noted that the council came up with another new local economic development initiative aimed at building community resilience which involved mushroom production within the town.

The project, he said would be undertaken through the engagement of identified former BCL miners, adding that the council appointed four officers to be the project facilitators.

The four had already been trained on mushroom production at Botswana Univerisity of Agriculture and Natural resources in September, he said.

“The team is still mobilising resources and production is anticipated to kick start in December 2021,” the mayor said.

For their part councilors gave the dam tourism initiative a green light saying that it would not only  create employment in the SPEDU region but was going to bring growth in the tourism sector. They also commended the council for the LED strategy as it would help address challenges faced by the community. ends