04 Jul 2023

The Lobatse Leather Park construction is still on the cards even though implementation of the project has been slow. 

The mayor of Lobatse Town Council (LTC) Mr Mosimanegape Dithebe explained this in his address to the full council meeting on Wednesday. 

Mr Dithebe said the slow progress was caused by lack of developments on site where the Leather Park would be constructed on the Lobatse Special Economic Zone (SEZ) plot. He said due to lack of developments on site, the Local Enterprises Agency (LEA) was forced to carry out enabling works for services to the plot and they included power and water provision, network connectivity and construction of access roads. 

Mr Dithebe further said in carrying out such enabling works infrastructure developments, there was need to harmonise the developments with the main plot’s plans which also caused delay. 

He added that submission of the Environmental Management Plan to the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) was done in February 2023, and a provisional approval for de- bushing and clearance of the site was granted in March 2023.

He said de-bushing work was then commenced in April and was expected to be completed in May. “Awards for the fencing of the plot was done in May 2023 and as per the fencing schedule, the works will be completed in July 2023, subject to suppliers securing the fencing material within a reasonable time since there is high demand for the Clean Vu fence,” he said. 

Mr Dithebe said terms of reference for main technical plants including solid and liquid waste solutions were developed and a tender was due for advertisement this month. Giving update on another large scale development project in the town, the Milk Afric dairy project, Mr Dithebe said Botswana Development Corporation (BDC) was at advanced stage of negotiations with a potential investor. 

He said the negotiations were to the effect that the investor should lease and operate the Milk Afric farm.

 He said a bio security fencing of the perimeter of about 300 hectares had begun and further pointed that 600 metres of the fence had been pegged. 

“Also de-bushing of the ploughing area of bushes and trees up to an area of 50 hectares is on-going. This area is to be utilized for growing pastures and fodder for the cows. 

Milk Afric intends to construct a 2.4 km paved road inside its farm using interlocking bricks. 

Implementation is anticipated to be done in not more than four months,” said the mayor. 

Mr Dithebe said a project manager was appointed for construction of the road and project scoping had begun. 

“Once fully operational, the farm will create 215 jobs for Batswana. It is also expected to contribute to (milk) import substitution,” he added. 

He said BDC had already developed a milking parlour, a cow housing facility, manure handling facility, bulk water tank with a capacity of one million litres and reticulation including pressure pumps as well as offices. 

The mayor further said the rotary was a 72-point milking parlour and could milk up to 2 000 cows in one milking session of three hours. 

He added that six boreholes were drilled on the farm, with a total water yield of 60 cubic meters. BOPA