The Chairman of Ngamiland Integrated Farmers Association, Simon Bojosi, has accused Botswana Television of ignoring a story in which government’s failure to maintain the border fence, which also acts as a disease-control fence between Botswana and Namibia was to be exposed.
Bojosi said that the story was made following their visit to the border fence with some officials of the MoA and BTV crew and was supposed to have been aired more than a week ago.
“I suspect they have decided not to run the story because it would have exposed the government, which is still failing to make sure the fence between us and Namibia is adequately maintained in order to guard against a re-occurrence of what happened in the past when more than 300,000 cattle were slaughtered because they had contacted lung disease from Namibian cattle,” he said.
He added that if it was not for that reason the story would have long been aired. Asked to say what they had witnessed, which shows that the government was not interested in maintaining the fence or was failing to do so, he said that there were very few people who have been hired to maintain the fence and that they do not have a car to do the job or even water to drink.
“I think there is no clear policy of what should be done to make sure that the fence there is properly maintained between the two countries. The whole thing, it seems, was just an afterthought,” he said.
Asked to comment on the issue, the BTV reporter who accompanied the farmers, Tshephang Monare says that it was not true that the story had been canned. According to him, they had, after doing the story of the border fence, gone on to do other stories in the district and that he hoped the story will be aired sometime this week.
“As we are talking, I am working on that story and others that I covered in the district and they will hopefully be aired this week,” he said.
