- New fence to be electrified
- Fence to address human wildlife conflict and poaching
- Maintenance of infrastructure to be done
- Public facilities, staff houses, roads and gates planned for maintenanceDWNP resource shortage being addressed
The long-standing contentious issue of the dilapidated Makgadikgadi National Park fence – the stretch from the Khumaga Gate southward along the river is finally getting government attention, and is being reconstructed and electrified.
Permanent Secretary in the ministry of environment and tourism, Boatametse Modukanele has revealed in an interview that the contractor is already on site and going ahead with the project which will see the controversial stretch fenced and electrified similar to the existing stretch.
This, as the ministry has moved to address the challenges of dilapidated infrastructure, roads and lack of resources in protected areas, which all have a bearing on tourism development.
There have also been concerns over the poor state of public facilities under care of the department of wildlife in protected areas especially camping sites. Operators and those using them have complained of paying for a lot of money for these facilities while they were not maintained.
Modukanele acknowledged that indeed there were problems in protected areas, especially Moremi Game Reserve, Chobe and Makgadikgadi national parks, further highlighting that after an assessment the ministry decided on the way forward in addressing them.
“One of the areas we have issues is the Makgadikgadi National Park where the fence from Khumaga gate was down. We have engaged a contractor who is already on site and has started reconstructing the fence. It will be a similar electrified fence like we have installed from Maun/Nata Road to Khumaga. We are installing a similar fence from Khumaga all the way to Rakops” Modukanele revealed.
Another contractor, according to Modukanele is working on the other remaining stretch of the fence to ensure total enclosure.
Key to rebuilding the fences lies broader objective to reduce human wildlife conflict where elephants freely wandered from the park into the villages where they destroyed crops and general disturbed peace and causing danger. The fence will also address the issue of poaching, where poachers accessed the park freely and killed animals for meat.
Another project that has gone for tender according to the permanent secretary is maintenance of the staff houses, and all the infrastructure in the Makgadikgadi National Park including the gates. The maintenance project will also be replicated at Chobe National Park and Moremi Game Reserve.
For this project, the ministry has adopted a model where one contractor is appointed for the entire project from design to implementation of the entire project, with a view to cut short the delivery time.
Further the heavy rains experienced have caused considerable damage to the road infrastructure inside Moremi Game Reserve, and this are also receiving attention according to Modukanele.
“We had a problem with wooden bridges in the Moremi Game reserve that were affected by the rains. Third and fourth wooden bridges were affected, and we already have people on site maintaining them with a view to reopen for use. Khwai bridge is also being attended to and will reopen soon,” he said.
Modukanele has however pointed out that they have challenges maintaining the affected roads given that they were already in bad state when they rains came and worsened the situation. It was inevitable that they will take longer to maintain, and that is if the rains do not come back soon.
On the shortages of resources within the department of wildlife and national parks – especially vehicles, Modukanele said something was being done to address the situation.
“With the terrain that we work in, some of our vehicle get damaged much quicker and with the current financial situation we are challenged to replace all the vehicles,” he said.
He however indicated that during the current financial year a number of vehicles were procured, and some will be distributed to DWNP to alleviate the shortage, with more to be procured in the next financial year.
