Maun: The permanent secretary in the Ministry of Environment and Tourism, Thato Raphaka has described as sensitive any discussions about Recon Botswana’s exploration license.
Raphaka played the sensitivity card just in time to rescue the company from a barrage of questions at the just ended Hospitality and Tourism Association (HATAB) conference.
Recon Botswana’s Ame Makoba had taken to the stage in an attempt to assure dozens of mostly Okavango Delta based hospitality businesses that his company’s oil and gas explorations were not about to put them out of business.
Makoba faced questions particularly on the true location of the anticipated exploration activities. Makoba said their oil and gas exploration licensing area falls outside the Okavango Delta, Tsodilo Hills, and National Parks but failed to provide the exact coordinates save to list the villages he said would be affected.
However the Permanent Secretary was right on cue to save the day for Recon Botswana, telling the conference that the matter was still before the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) committee. He said Botswana will appear before the committee in July2023 to answer to the granting of the oil and gas exploration license around the protected UNESCO World Heritage sights Okavango Delta and Tsodilo Hills.
Botswana’s subpoena by UNESCO comes after the United Nations agency, in a strongly worded report in 2021, warned Botswana that it was concerned “about the granting of oil exploration licenses in environmentally sensitive areas within the Okavango River basin in north-western Botswana and north-eastern Namibia.”
Drilling by the parent company ReconAfrica is already underway in Namibia where the company holds a 90 percent interest in a petroleum exploration licence in the northeast region. The exploration license covers the entire Kavango sedimentary basin, an area of approximately 25,341.33 sq km which, based on commercial success, entitles ReconAfrica to obtain a 25 year production licence. The company says the Kavango Basin offers a thick Permian sequence that they believe will supply a huge conventional oil play. The Kavango Basin also covers parts of Botswana and Angola.
The move by both Namibia and Botswana governments to licence the company has come under immense pressure from international conservationists and pressure groups over fears the company activities will have devastating effects on the Okavango Delta ecosystem. UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre announced in late December 2020 that they had been made aware of petitions by civil society groups in relation to ReconAfrica’s planned activities.
Botswana is also facing a legal battle with a mining company over a prospecting license within the Okavango Delta buffer zones. The trial, between Qcwihaba Resources and the Ministry of Minerals resumed last week here in Maun. The company is demanding a renewal of their prospecting license part of which licensing area falls within the buffer zones of the Delta. The company also wants compensation for the work already done in the area if the government refuses to grant them the license. The undisturbed Okavango wetlands have never been subject to significant development and most of the area remains in an almost pristine condition. Tourism to the inner Delta is limited to small, temporary tented camps with access by air. Facilities are carefully monitored for compliance with environmental standards and have minimal ecological impact.
Therefore any other activities that are seen to threaten the very existence of the vast water land that runs through Angola, Namibia and Botswana have been frowned upon.
