One of regional mining’s most colourful characters, Irishman, John Teeling is an illustrious mineral explorer and global whisky magnate known in Botswana for his involvement in rich diamond discoveries such as Karowe Mine and others around Orapa. After years of narrow misses at previous editions of the Botswana Resource Sector conference, Staff Writer, MBONGENI MGUNI, finally sat across from Teeling this week and here reports the words of a multi-millionaire who for more than 40 years has searched for minerals everywhere from Ghana to Bolivia and from Iran to Zimbabwe
Getting into Botswana
“I came here in 2002. I had been working in Zimbabwe in gold but the business became difficult because of political uncertainty. I need as much certainty in an environment as possible because I take the risk in geology. I therefore moved with my highly trained people to the greenstone belt around Francistown.
Many have made it very clear that there is nothing more they would prefer than seeing the two ending their feud and working together for the good of the country.While some Batswana dismissed reconciliatory efforts as a political ploy, many Batswana welcomed the move with open arms because it is obvious that the feud between the president and former president has not been looking good for the country.The misunderstanding that seems to have started...