Against the odds, Phikwe refuses to die

Phikwe mall PIC: KEOAGILE BONANG
Phikwe mall PIC: KEOAGILE BONANG

SELEBI-PHIKWE: Despite the fact that the town is now a shadow of its former self, a windswept hollow on the brink of ghost-status, Selebi Phikwe is holding to the few strands of hope remaining within reach.

The October 2016 closure of its economic mainstay, BCL Mine, left Selebi-Phikwe resembling a scene from a post-apocalyptic movie, a town emptied by a disaster, shops boarded up, homes deserted, the few remaining survivors walking about in stunned disbelief. For town mayor, Molosiwa Molosiwa, however, hope springs eternal in Selebi-Phikwe.  According to him, by the end of the third quarter, 1,239 new jobs had been created in the town through the attraction of investors across different sectors. This is against a target of 1,770 jobs.

SPEDU, the regional agency spearheading Phikwe’s investment and survival drive, is engaged with about 50 companies, some of them citizen-owned, in areas such as information technology, manufacturing, agriculture and construction. Collectively, the companies are expected to invest about P1.8 billion in the region.

Editor's Comment
Something ought to be done about deadly A3 Road

The accident which happened near Marapong village comes after yet another horrific accident which claimed 16 lives in July last year near Hubona. These stats don’t include other accidents where fatalities were not as many as the two.While several factors may have contributed to the two accidents and many others, many believe the biggest with that road is the bad state that the road is in. Unconfirmed reports in the most recent accident state...

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