Matsiloje police face uphill battle against illegal mining
Lesedi Mkhutshwa | Tuesday February 6, 2024 06:00
Both the Department of Mines and the Botswana Police Service (BPS) have escalated their efforts to curb illicit mining, closing abandoned mine shafts and strengthening enforcement. According to reliable information, over 15 individuals have appeared in Francistown Magistrate Court to face charges related to engaging in illicit mining.
Matsiloje Police Station commander, Superintendent Oteng Ngada told The Monitor of increasing cases of illegal mining since the beginning of the year. "We register one or two cases of illegal mining every week, but I currently do not have the statistics," he said. The majority of these illegal miners, as noted by the chief of police in Matsiloje, are undocumented immigrants from Zimbabwe.
Kgosi Eric Moipolai of Matsiloje expressed his concerns over the surge of illegal gold miners in the village at a kgotla meeting earlier this year. In October last year, members of the Botswana Defence Force, BPS, experts from the Department of Mines, and firefighters jointly launched a search to retrieve the body of a Zimbabwean who was alleged to have fallen into a 200-metre shaft at the old Rainbow Gold Mine.