By: Sheila Perestrelo
Minister of industrialisation and trade Lucia Iipumbu says the MIT and the environment, forestry, and tourism ministry (MEFT) have agreed on co-financing to fast-track the rehabilitation of the water supply points.
This comes after The Villager recently reported that over a hundred livestock at the Kavango Cattle Ranch died due to alleged mismanagement by the Namibia Industrial Development Agency (NIDA).
Iipumbu said the recent developments at the ranch were highly regrettable, disheartening, and damaging when the country needed a drastic economic recovery.
“Both parties have secured all necessary internal approvals and endorsement. Secondly, to fast-track the bringing on stream of the wildlife reserve option, both MIT and MEFT will finalise a Memorandum of Agreement to ensure a management plan to support both breeding and nature-based tourism enterprise development.,” she said during her visit to the farm in the Mangetti area of Kavango West on Friday.
According to the minister, the upgrading and optimisation of the Kavango Cattle Ranch was identified as a flagship project for value addition in the Growth at Home Execution Strategy for industrialisation.
“Consequently, the MIT developed a business plan for KCR, which was completed and endorsed in 2017. The endorsement led to ensuring its programming within the MIT’s development budget portfolio under the National Planning Commission.”
“The resultant public investment pertains to substantial fencing work, rehabilitation of waterpoints and debushing work. These public investment measures entail a delicate balancing act to ensure a viable elephant management strategy whilst work is ongoing but also mainstreaming micro, small and medium enterprises employment opportunities. Given the development budget, programming the MIT along with NIDA has been implementing the work within the above-described context.”
Kavango Regional Councillor Joseph Shikongo recently told The Villager that immediate intervention was needed to revamp the status quo of the Kavango Cattle ranch.
Shikongo stated that since 2021, when the Namibian Industrial Development Agency took over the farm, the livestock has been “dying hourly”.
Under the NIDA care, the ranch has over 38 camps with over 12 000 cattle.
Meanwhile, NIDA boss Mihe Gaomeb II has recently apologised for the death of over 100 cattle at the farm.
