19 Nov 2013

Parliament has been informed that out of the 161 ranches allocated under the fencing policy of 1991 in Ghanzi District, 30 have their perimeter fence completed with 16 fully developed

The Assistant Minister of Agriculture, Mr Oreeditse Molebatsi said in response to a question in Parliament that 13 ranches were at various stages of development whilst 118 were not yet developed.

Therefore, he said, the success rate of the fencing policy in Ghanzi District was low at 19 per cent and this was attributed to insufficient financial resources. He said Kgalagadi District on the other hand had 20 ranches, out of which nine are fully developed, two partially developed and nine still to be developed which translates to 45 per cent success rate.

Assistant Minister Molebatsi stated that nationally there were 891 ranches with 461 fully developed, giving a 52 percent success rate. He said the pace at which the policy is being implemented is slow.

He said the government nevertheless continues to demarcate more ranches where feasible and also assist farmers with alignment of their ranches. To further facilitate the implementation of this policy, the current strategy is to advise and also developed business plans for farmers to approach CEDA and other financial institutions for finance.

He said the loss of P73 million by Botswana Meat Commission (BMC) due to measles is compounded by failure to implement the policy as well as failure by farmers to build sanitary facilities in their production areas such as farms and cattle posts.

The minister said building of toilets and seeing to it that the range is not contaminated with human waste is the remedy for measles. The MP for Kgalagadi North, Mr Phillip Khwae had asked the minister to state the success rate of the 1991 fencing policy in the Ghanzi and Kgalagadi districts and at national level.

The MP had also wanted to know if the minister is content with pace at which the fencing policy is being implemented and what us the strategy in place to speed up its implementation. He further asked whether failure to implement this policy is not one of the many factors that led to the loss of P73 million by BMC as a result of the outbreak of measles. ENDS