Keep the digital eyes on the border

Mmegi Editor | Monday June 1, 2026 06:00

He is speaking of a lifetime of trust broken, a belief that their vigilance, their mephato patrols, their ancestral knowledge of the land would keep disaster at bay.

That trust now lies trampled by a virus no elder remembers ever seeing. Yet, hidden in the despair is a quiet, persistent helper that must not be abandoned: Artificial Intelligence or AI.

We are not talking about cold machines replacing the warmth of community effort. The farmers walking the fence line at night, Dikgosi rallying their people, the owner watching a drone pass overhead, these are the human faces of this fight.

But those humans are exhausted. They cannot be everywhere at once across a zone so vast. And when a single goat slipping through a gap can mean the destruction of an entire herd, human eyes alone are not enough to deal with the matter. That is where AI comes in, not as a stranger, but as a tireless companion. Earlier this year, as panic spread, surveillance drones were sent to the border. They were the first digital eyes scanning the red zone for movement. Now imagine those eyes, powered by AI, learning every day.

A camera on a drone spots a shape near the cordon fence. Is it a cow, a person, or a shadow? In seconds, AI knows. It sends an alert to a mobile phone in the nearest village, not to a distant office. The local mophato, already patrolling without pay, finally gets the support they deserved all along.

It is the practical, human application of technology we already possess.

The tragedy of Othusitse Tsamaesi’s 20 cattle being shot, or Thuso Bapalami’s 11 goats destroyed, is not just about harsh rules. It is about detection coming too late.

AI can change that. It can give a farmer a warning before his animal ever touches the danger zone, offering a chance to act rather than just mourn. It can map the hidden crossing points, predict the risky hours, and keep a digital watch that never sleeps. This is the role AI must continue to play, not as a replacement for the people of Good Hope District, but as their eyes when they are weary.

We have 24 months to prove to the world that this virus is gone. Traditional patrols and reactive vaccinations cannot gather the unbroken chain of evidence required. Continuous, automated AI surveillance can. It will record every day of quiet, every absence of the disease, building the dossier that will one day restore our markets and our pride.

So we say to the Ministry and its partners: keep the drones flying. Keep the algorithms learning.