Phikwe Coop eyes to seal commercial project deals
Onalenna Kelebeile | Thursday June 23, 2016 14:55
The projects range from establishing game parks, horticulture, manufacturing and dairy farming.
The society’s chairman, Tebogo Venson said in an interview that they have been offered animals to start up a game park, but the only challenge delaying the project is unavailability of land.
He was, however, positive that once the master plan for SPEDU is out they would manage to implement the game park.
“We have also identified some piece of land, which we are still negotiating with the Land Board for. We also intend to approach the Land Board over land belonging to Mmadinare Dairy as well as privately-owned land between Tobane and Bobonong for eco-tourism and horticulture activities,” he said.
He further said they intend to aggressively exploit emerging opportunities within the SPEDU region and beyond, as well as obtain a tourism licence.
“We will also align efforts to SPEDU and also prepare the groundwork for all opportunities identified,” he added.
Venson said they also want to venture into manufacturing by exploiting opportunities in school furniture manufacturing and liaise with Pula Steel for raw materials. They will also identify areas of possible collaboration with Pula Steel.
He added that they have been offered to buy the Mmadinare Dairy property in town for P500,000. The property will be used as head office. He said they are just waiting for a title deed to acquire the property.
“This will help Mmadinare Dairy survive. We are trying to revive them as per our transformation strategy. Once we rehabilitate their land and rent it, they will be able to get up and start operating again,” he added.
The chairman added that under horticulture they want to explore emerging opportunities, develop channels of distribution, procure farming equipment and obtain the right talent according to the organisational structure.
They will also develop a Memorandum of Understanding with the food processing plant, identify suitable crops for production and also profile talent according to needs.
He further said the cooperative had joined forces with three other societies namely; Bobonong Multi-Purpose, Ditswammung SACCOS and Motswedi SACCOS to form a cooperative called Ditsweletse Cooperative Limited. The four are in the process of purchasing a piece of land from Lentswe-La-Odi for P4 million. Each society will contribute P1.2 million towards the purchase of the land. Venson added that the land has 52 sub-divided plots, which have title deeds. “According to our strategic plan, we have to run for any opportunity that comes across,” he said.