22 Jun 2023

Selebi Phikwe citrus project and Premium Nickel Resources (PNR) mine are critical projects for employment creation in the SPEDU region, the Vice President, Mr Slumber Tsogwane says.

Speaking during a tour of the projects on Wednesday, Mr Tsogwane said the projects ‘speaks volumes about what government stands for; transformation’.

At the citrus plants, Mr Tsogwane said he appreciated the speed at which the plants were progressing.

“If you get to this place you start to visualise jobs…I’m told you have 200 employees at this initial stage and will create about 1 500 jobs when in full throttle,” he said.

Mr Tsogwane said there were many jobs in agriculture, some of which would be created through value chain development.

When in full operation, the farm will address three sustainable development goals of unemployment, poverty and good health as well as wellbeing, resulting from benefits of the produce, he said.

Mr Tsogwane said that an agreement between the citrus farm and Botswana University of Agriculture and Natural Resources would benefit students with transfer of skills while also pushing frontiers of knowledgebased

economy.

He said the signing of the agreement by the two parties presented the citrus farm as no ordinary as it drove a number of government initiatives including an export-led economy. The plant also addresses food security, according to Mr Tsogwane.

For his part, pack operations and logistics manager, Mr Kobus Botha, said his team was hard at work putting things in order prior to the first harvest in January 2024.

The harvest will start with lemons. The pack house, he said, was almost complete with majority of the remaining works on floors.

After completion of the floors, the pack house will welcome machines which will be installed, tested and commissioned between September and October.

The pack house will start with120 employees, and will employ 400 on two shifts when in full throttle.

While at PNR shafts, Mr Tsogwane reported progress towards opening of the mine saying the company was carrying out research amongst other things, to ensure safety before opening.

“It’s work in progress…it will hire more people and it’ll have more value chain development,” Mr Tsogwane said, adding that there would be more revenue avenues from the mine when it finally operates.

Although he had no definite opening date of the then BCL Selebi and Selebi North mines, PNR chief executive officer Mr Montwedi

Mphathi said, “we’re alive to the importance and expectationsattached to opening of the mine, but we must be diligent and shrewd before we can eventually open so that we avoid a situation where we may be forced to close again due to

some oversight.”

He said after finding out the size of the ore they would then devise the best way to process copper and nickel. Ends