Botswana: Makomoto Folk Pick Up the Pieces
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Mmegi/The Reporter (Gaborone)
1 August 2008
Posted to the web 4 August 2008
Patricia Maganu
Almost a year after the Department of Forestry repossessed their firewood, residents of Makomoto lands are slowly trying to pick up the pieces and get on with their lives.
The repossession of firewood robbed many of them of their only source of income.
The residents say that their firewood has been returned.
One of the residents, Maitamo Sanga says that even though the firewood has been returned, they are still struggling.
"The firewood was returned but the way I see it, that was not the same firewood that they repossessed from us," she said.
She said that the firewood that was returned did not really serve any purpose as the people had already dug themselves into debt by the time the wood was returned. "Besides we could not sell firewood in the meantime," she added.
Residents say the steps government took to alleviate the problem still has challenges for them because they cannot sell firewood like before.
Government now wants a license for harvesting of wood. Seitshiro Majuta, one of the people who say the repossession of firewood was a draw back says the licence is a good solution but it is not cheap.
"You have to pay for it and it comes with rules that hinder us from selling the way we would have wanted to," he said.
The licence requires that they sell firewood from their yards unlike what they used to do.
"Right now people still do not know that there is firewood in Makomoto because we are supposed to keep them at our homes and if your home is far from the road, how will you ever get your firewood to sell?" he asked.
The licence to sell firewood is P10 if you want to gather with a donkey cart, and P50 if you want to sell.
"It just depends. They can allow you to gather as much as you can with a donkey cart, but if you do not have one you have to pay P50 for the licence and also buy firewood from the people with donkey carts who have also raised their prices since things are expensive," says Sebaraboy Sanga, one of the men who sell firewood.
"Getting a license is not easy because you have to go to Francistown or Selebi Phikwe to get one and you have to spend a lot of money.
Things are not easy, but at least we get to sell the little that we can," he says. Sanga says the road was a better place to market firewood. "Especially people from South Africa they would stop and buy as many as they could carry and business was good but now it is just a struggle and everything from food to clothes is expensive," he stated.
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"We still struggle to pay for our children's school fees and we also cannot afford to buy food so we are still in debt as we have to get most things on credit," he added.
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Copyright © 2008 Mmegi/The Reporter. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
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