Issued by: North West Communication Service
North West Premier Popo Molefe today (Tuesday) secured an agreement with the Botswana government to establish an inter-governmental liaison committee to facilitate the relation between the two governments within the RSA national foreign policy framework.
Mr Molefe is leading a delegation of his ministers consisting of MEC Tolo, Darkey Africa, Martin Kuskus and Mrs G Gaoretelelwe on a three day visit to Botswana. The purpose of the visit is to explore possibilities of trade relations between the provincial government and Botswana as they both share a common international border.
The committee established will agree on practical steps to exchange information and expertise about tourism, agriculture, education, rural development projects and other strategic areas of government.
The discussions also focused on the development of the Walvisbay-Kalahari corridor which has to run throughout the Northern Cape, North West Province, Mpumalanga up to Mozambique.
Negotiations to extend the operating hours of the border gates were also gone into. "We want to develop attractive tourism packages to service the corridor and raise our provinceUs tourism potential", said Mr Molefe.
Mr Molefe's delegation also paid a courtesy call on the President of Botswana, Sir Ketumile Masire and is now proceeding to the rural areas of Botswana to study projects on the empowerment of women.
Contact: Willie Modise 0825584087 June 5 1996