17 Nov 2013

Government effort to acquire land from the Reformed Church in D’kar has not been successful.

Addressing a kgotla meeting at D’kar in Ghanzi District on Thursday, November 14, President Lt Gen. Seretse Khama Ian Khama said government had tried in vain to acquire land from the church.

Therefore, President Khama said it was not easy for government to provide other services such as land allocation and provision of potable water on a privately owned land. However, he said government had built a primary school and a clinic so as to provide basic necessities.

The President urged residents to plead with the church to allocate part of its land to government while assuring residents that government would not interfere with their gospel activities. He said they would continue to freely preach the gospel.

On one hand, residents appealed to government to seek land from the church arguing that even though the church had portioned some land for them, they had not been issued with plot certificates.

The land board and Water Utilities Corporation could not allocate land nor provide water to the residents. D’ kar is a private land owned by the Reformed Church and is situated 35 km Northeast of Ghanzi.

The Minister of Agriculture, Mr Christiaan De Graaff told residents that the Ghanzi area had a population of about 320 000 herds of cattle and so far about 13 000 herds of cattle in Ghanzi had been ear-tagged.

He appealed to farmers to take their cattle for bolus and ear tags saying the programme of inserting bolus and ear tags should be completed by next year March. Farmers in D’ kar said their request to build another abattoir in Ghanzi was not meant to compete with Botswana Meat Commission(BMC) but to create employment for Ghanzi residents and stop overdependence on government. Ends