Social

Botala’s operations will have significant positive socio-economic impacts. Employment, education and business opportunities will stem directly and indirectly from Botala’s activities. To ensure that these impacts materialise and benefit the local population, Botala will undertake local and regional socio-economic reviews and consultations to understand the social environment, identify opportunities, note pitfalls to be avoided, and develop relevant social and employment policies.

We aim to maximise benefits, and ensure these benefits go to local communities as a priority and ultimately to all Batswana. In support of this aspiration, we aim to achieve all 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations.

Botala’s activities are expected to generate the following socio-economic benefits:

Employment

• Generate direct and indirect employment, including new opportunities for supporting industries and vendors, ie hardware suppliers, food vendors, fabrication yards.
• Permanent and casual employment with opportunity for training, skills transfer and improving a diverse range of technical, construction, operation, maintenance, commercial and management skills.
• Most of the skills can be recruited from within the greater Serowe region or Botswana, and training programmes will be implemented to upskill the local community. Care will be taken to ensure the employment of local people, contractors, and service supplies as a priority.
• Reduce local unemployment rates.

New industries

• A reliable supply of energy is expected to stimulate existing industries and new ones, especially those focused on complimenting cbm extraction and related industries, such as: irrigation, CNG, LNG, hydrogen by pyrolysis of cbm, and carbon-black production.
• Processing carbon-black to graphite flakes, graphene and nanotubes will establish new, high-value and high-tech industries.
• Appeal to new investors and industries in South Africa wanting to relocate their operations to obtain access to clean and reliable energy and the other favourable attributes of Botswana.
• Partner with local or foreign entities interested in:
  • Renewables; battery storage, battery minerals.
  • Gas turbines or generators.
  • CNG and LNG production and distribution.
  • Hydrogen production by pyrolysis of cbm as a fuel for distribution.
  • Hydrogen production by electrolysis.
  • Hydrogen fuel cells, generators, vehicles.
  • Carbon black value-adding, especially graphite flakes, graphene and nanotubes. This could establish a substantial new age industry requiring research-and-development, engineering, production, and distribution.

Health

• Botala employees have healthcare included in their employment packages.
• Replacing wood with cbm will reduce its many health, gender inequality and school attendance related issues and remove the need for women to spend many hours collecting firewood.

Market gardening and agriculture

• Botala proposed market gardening and large-scale irrigation are labour-intensive ventures that should reinforce regional food security and grow the local agricultural processing industry.
• This will require farming and business training to assist the community in creating and maintaining a self-sufficient, sustainable, local business, ensuring lasting value and long-term benefits.
• Botala may itself undertake this, or in partnership with local landowners, on land Botala is likely to acquire for its cbm operations.
• This could provide employment for unemployed or part-time employed people in rural areas.

National Financial Savings

Increased use of domestically produced electricity, CNG and LNG will conserve foreign currency by reducing the need to import expensive electricity and diesel.