Mabule villages need border gate � chief
Tumelo Mouwane | Tuesday August 22, 2017 16:47
In an interview, Mabule village chief, Lemson Kelekwang said lack of a border gate between Mabule village in Botswana and Mabule village in South Africa has always frustrated their efforts to fight stocktheft or retrieve stolen livestock.
He said perpetrators take advantage of the distance authorities have to travel between the two countries in order to trace the stolen livestock.
“We are very concerned at the rate at which livestock is stolen in Mabule village and driven across the dilapidated border fence into South Africa.
The perpetrators are our own children in the village but they work in collaboration with others on the other side of the borderline. Our main concern is the fact that there is no border gate in our village despite closely sharing the borderline with some of our own on the other side.
“It is quite challenging for authorities to quickly trace stolen livestock on the other side of the border before it is slaughtered because they have to travel a long distance to access the gate in Tshidilamolomo village,” he said.
Kelekwang however said they have established a ‘good working relationship’ with other village leaders in Mabule village in South Africa where in some instances they are allowed to pass the border without permission or authority in order to quickly intercept criminal activities.
“The challenge persisted to an extent where we helplessly watched our livestock being driven into South Africa.
We have however established a good working relationship with village leaders and other authorities in South Africa and we can now quickly cross the border under some circumstances and intercept criminal activities.
“If there is a perpetrator we are looking for on the others side, we communicate with the leaders and they will extradite that particular offender to our side to account for their offence and vice-versa, but we urgently need the border gate,” Kelekwang said.
Area councillor, Moses Semang of Mabule-Tshidilamolomo ward said they are working hand in hand with authorities in order to establish the market for the stolen livestock in South Africa and push authorities to take firm action. “We are working hand in hand with relevant security departments in order to establish the market in which the stolen livestock is taken to in South Africa.
Our aim at the end of the day is to push for South African authorities to prosecute such offenders in a bid to quash livestock theft in the village.
“We are also calling on relevant authorities to establish a border gate in our village. According to an investigation which was done recently, the border crossing which was established in Tshidilamolomo village recently was not supposed to be placed there because Mabule village has a larger population,” Semang said.