Sunday, February 9, 2025

MP wants expat tourists to make ‘all’ payments locally

During his brief stint as a backbencher, then Mmadinare MP and future Vice President, Ponatshego Kedikilwe, chaired the Sessional Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, Trade and Security. Ahead of a field trip to the Okavango Delta, the Committee’s secretary, a National Assembly staffer, called a Maun telephone number listed for a certain lodge that Committee members planned to stay at. However, the person who answered the call redirected the secretary to a booking agency in South Africa. This was standard practice: guests who wished to stay at this lodge, which is located in Botswana, were required to call a Johannesburg office in order to book accommodation as well as make payment into a South African bank account that the office provided.

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