Lobatse tannery an environmental concern

Lekopanye Mooketsi | Thursday February 20, 2014 16:19

 

 

Answering a question in parliament, the Minister of Agriculture, Christian De Graff said the Lobatse residential area near the tannery was now surrounding the plant and the smell from the plant was increasingly becoming a concern to residents. 

He said in order to combat this, either a major refurbishment of the plant was required or the plant had to be relocated to a new state outside town.

De Graff said the other reason that led to the closure was the frequent breakdown and blockage of the effluent pipeline from the tannery to the evaporation ponds.  He noted that the pipe was old and needed to be replaced.

The Minister said these two issues required considerable capital which BMC could not afford especially at the prevailing market prices for wet blue hides; thus making the project non viable.  He revealed that there were indeed some local companies that showed interest in buying the plant.

However, this arrangement fell through because the plant would need to be relocated at some point. The interested companies felt that it would be costly to buy the plant and later relocate it.

De Graff said at that time the tannery was contributing negatively towards the overall finances of BMC.  He added that the tannery machinery is dilapidated.  He said some of the drums are being utilised for wet salting as the hiders are now being sold in wet salted form.  As for the Phakalane plant, De Graff said it belongs to Tannery Industries Botswana (TIB) that is a private entity.