Water scarcity has always been a damning challenge faced by farmers in Botswana. This is so because most of the farmers depend on rainfall for ploughing. However, Botswana has been importing most of the food as it cannot produce enough for the citizens.
As of January 2021, according to Statistics Botswana, the total value of food imports stood at Seven Hundred and Eighty-two Million, One Hundred and Seventy-seven thousand, Six Hundred and Nineteen Pula (P 782,177,619).
According to Wynter Mmolotsi, the Legislator for Francistown South, the government needs to invest in drilling boreholes for farmers so that food security can be achieved.
“For us to produce food in Botswana, we need to pay attention to the issue of water. We cannot produce food if we depend on rainfall, let us drill boreholes for Batswana so that they can produce food.” suggested Mmolotsi.
Responding to Mmolotsi’s motion, the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) legislators did not agree. According to the ruling party, there is no money to carry out such exercise.
“We can hear you Mr. Mmolotsi, that the government should drill boreholes for the farmers, but where are we going to get money from?” Vice President Slumber Tsogwane asked.
For her part, specially elected Member of Parliament, Beauty Manake, who is also the Assistant Minister of Agricultural Development and Food Security commented, “Mmolotsi’s motion is mixed up, it is not clear, if you look at prices it is very expensive, we cannot do a blanket approach on this matter. This motion is not progressive, it is unlike Honourable Mmolotsi as he is from Alliance for Progressives”
Though the ruling party indicated that the motion is not possible as it is expensive, and the government does not have that kind of money, Mmolotsi demonstrated that that is not the case.
“The money is there, it is just an issue of priority. If we are serious about food production, the money is available. If you take the money which was used to buy Tautona lodge for example, Fifty-eight Million Pula (P58 million) could be used to drill Five Hundred (500) boreholes.” Mmolotsi asserted.
Tautona lodge was recently bought from a former BDP Member of Parliament, and Minister- Christian DeGreef for a whooping Fifty-eight Million Pula (P58 million). The reasons for purchasing the lodge during a time when the pandemic was severe, are still sketchy up to today.
