At a consultative meeting at the District Commissioner's office with proprietors of small businesses and people in the informal sector this week, Saleshando heard that continued shortage of land spelled doom for the copper-nickel mining town.The chairman of the Piggery Processing and Marketing Cooperative Society that is popularly known as Badikolobe, Rosemary Mukwewa, said while plots were "expensive without justification", her outfit fell outside businesses targeted for the 74 light industrial plots that were recently handed over to Selebi-Phikwe Economic Diversification Unit.But even so, the plots were priced out of reach for the specified enterprises. Hence Estates Cooperative Society, which wants to build residential houses and warehouses for sale, had since appealed to the Minister of Trade and Industry to intervene.
Mukwewa said when Badikolobe applied for a plot on undeveloped land, they were told that the land was earmarked for an American pharmaceutical company that would come to make ARVs and another foreign company that would come to make fertilizer from the mine's emissions.However, participants said, inspite of what Badikilobe was told, there were no records indicating that the land was allocated to anyone. Mukwewa said complexities of the land situation in Selebi-Phikwe had resulted in potential investors going elsewhere.Even when BCL gave SMMEs plots on its lease area, the land board took too long to endorse it, she said. A member of Selebi-Phikwe Consumers' Cooperative Society, Christopher Molelo, agreed with Mukwewa, saying SMMEs could not afford P1,460 per square metre.
