ICT has been citied a prominent field that can be used to improve the fortunes of the hub of commercial arable farming and the bread basket that Pandamatenga is to Botswana. This as the village, through the large scale commercial farming contributes to the national food granary, but faces bleak prospects due to climate change that has affected production.
Speaking during the commemoration of the world telecommunication and information Society Day in Pandamateng last week, Botswana Telecommunications Corpoation Limited (BTCL) Mokgethi Magapa said government is committed to eliminate hunger and poverty.
He stated that it is their firm believe that digital technologies can help achieve sustainable development goals of which are key in the elimination of hunger and poverty.
“ICT can play a very important role in the development of agricultural sector in Pandamatenga and the tourism sector can also benefit from it. We urge the Pandamatenga community to deliver their aspirations, as we aspire for this area to have full connectivity, full access to usage and benefit from ICT services,’’ he said.
Magapa said when they were recently doing assessments in the Pandamatenga area, they established that it has poor telecommunication coverage, but he was happy that Orange, Mascom and BTCL have made some developments and the coverage has improved.
He noted that the village connectivity (SmartBots) infrastructure which were not functioning at Pandamatenga Kgotla, clinic and school have been restored.
‘‘I can assure that through BOCRA we will see sustainable network quality coverage and usage. We are busy at work to ensure that areas like Pandamatenga not only have coverage but has access to high speed internet to be able to access many services that government is migrating online,” he said.
Meanwhile, different stakeholders under the Ministry of Communications, Knowledge and Technology have made some pledges at a cost of over P1 million in Chobe villages including Pandamatenga and Lesoma in order to develop ICT infrastructure and skills.
BTCL has trained school going children on different ICT skills, donated heavy duty photocopier for Pandamatenga kgotla, provided e-Learning Solution – Smart boards at Lesoma Primary School, donated four Computers (two at Lesoma Primary School, one at Pandamatenga Kgotla and one Lesoma Clinic). The corporation has also donated a 46-inch TV set, bracket, set top box decoder and dish (Lesoma clinic). All these donations are valued at over P186 000.
