Africa-Press – Botswana. Farmers in Mmeya and Mokubilo in the Boteti district have been advised to form clusters for effortless benefit of government initiatives such as electrified field fencing.
Addressing a Kgotla meeting in Mmeya recently, Boteti East MP, Mr Sethomo Lelatisitswe highlighted that it was also important to register such clusters.
He said government took a decision to provide grants at 100 per cent for solar electrification of field fences in elephant prone areas such as Mmeya and Mokubilo.
This, he said, was to be done in collaboration with the Department of Wildlife and National Parks for cost effective solar electrification options.
The legislator therefore pleaded with land boards to fast track land allocation so that more people could have fields and eventually benefit from the programme.
Government, Mr Lelatisitswe said, had also extended the Impact Accelerator Subsidy to cover irrigation of field crops through borehole equipping and water reticulation in commercial production clusters.
Mmeya resident, Mr Kebatsaletswe Keithaganetse commended government for the solar electrification of field fences initiative, saying elephants had been terrorising farmers at their fields.
He said for the longest time people of Mmeya lived in agony, especially during harvest season as animals fed on farmers’ crops leaving them empty handed every year.
Another resident, Mr Lashiwani Badza concurred and applauded the electrification of fields.
He however highlighted that something needed to be done about elephants encroaching into human settlements, noting that co-existing with such animals proved to be difficult.
On a different matter, in Mokubilo, MP Lelatisitswe told residents that a clinic with maternity ward was on cards.
He said the project was to be undertaken through the Transitional National Development Plan.
This followed complaints from the constituents that the current Mokubilo clinic needed to be upgraded and that the population had outgrown the facility.
Residents also had decried the long distance traveled to Letlhakane to access maternity services.
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