05 Sep 2022

Premiere Nickel Resources Botswana (PNRB) will host the inaugural Tsholofelo Carnival aimed at promoting and showcasing the social and historic origins of the SPEDU region.

The carnival’s inauguration, which comes a year after PNRB acquired part of the BCL mines, is billed for September 27 to October 1.

It will mark the official soft launch of PNRB’s Tsholofelo project, which symbolises hope and the socio-economic growth that PNRB holds for the SPEDU region and country.

“We have collaborated with dikgosi and other stakeholders to come together and celebrate Independence as a union. 

We are calling for a street party which is a carnival parade where we are calling everybody in Selebi Phikwe to be looking colourful in their regalia on September 30,” said the mastermind behind the Tsholofelo Carnival and also PNRB environmental, social and governance manager, Ms Shamil Agosi during a press briefing on Friday.

Tsholofelo Carnival, she said, aimed at promoting and showcasing the social and historic origins of the region through music, sports, dance, arts and entrepreneurship.

She said the Tsholofelo Carnival parade would lead all to the Sam Sono Stadium where all Independence activities would be taking place including the Carnival Cup on October 1.

Ms Agosi explained that the roving Carnival Cup recognised the role of sports in Selebi Phikwe and surrounding areas in keeping the social cohesion.

She commended the Selebi Phikwe community for being part of the new story and emphasised that the town would be a force to reckon with in all aspects.

In addition, she said, there would also be performance and showcasing of all forms of arts found in the SPEDU region on September 29.

“We want all the artists in the SPEDU region to speak to the development of Selebi Phikwe and we want them to tell their story through their art. We are going to teach them how to market themselves and how to remain relevant,” she said.

Ms Agosi said, despite the economic hardships that the community experienced, she said the Selebi Phikwe residents had hoped that one day someone would come and take over the mines and resuscitate the local economy.

She said the carnival was meant to bring alive that hope and faith in the better tomorrow for Selebi Phikwe“We decided to come up with Tsholofelo Carnival for the hopes that people have not only on PNR but for the hopes that people have in our cohesion together thus we decided to bring different stakeholders on board such as Selebi Phikwe Town Council, SPEDU and many more” she said.

Ms Agosi said during conceptualisation, the committee looked at what hope meant pertaining to arts and culture, sports and entrepreneurship, hence the idea of an entrepreneurship development programme.

“That is why we are going to be calling all the SMMEs in the SPEDU region and we are currently running a needs assessment programme to address the SMMEs needs. 

This programme is going to be co-hosted alongside the numerous private sector companies that are in Selebi Phikwe and parastatals that would be looking at economic development such as SPEDU, LEA and many others,” she said.

“While our main objective is to re-develop the former BCL assets we bought, we also recognise our community in building a resilient economy. We want to build a resilient community that can continue sustaining itself even when the mine closes because the resource we are mining is not forever”, added the PNRB chief executive officer, Mr Montwedi Mphathi.

Mr Mphathi said success would be measured by no impact when the mine closed because ‘we would have worked with all the stakeholders to ensure that we have continuity and an economy that can stand on its own without the mine.’

He said PNRB wanted the carnival to develop entrepreneurship in driving a resilient economy, adding entrepreneurshiphad been neglected.

“Entrepreneurship needs to be developed and needs to become part of the bigger economy than it is now.”

Furthermore, Mr Mphathi explained that sports on one hand also helped the town during hard times by keeping people together.

In addition, he said the carnival would also touch on Tswana culture more especially that it would be held during Independence holidays.

“We want to ensure that we make inclusive decisions by understanding and consulting the community to ensure that the objective of ensuring that the town does not experience what it experienced when BCL shut down and liquidated is achieved,” said Mr Mphathi. ENDS