Caitlin Davies
Sun International is about to fight its biggest battle yet in Botswana as community leaders, church followers and the public join forces to oppose the issuing of a casino licence in the northern village of Maun.
“We are shouting to the international community to invest, but a casino is dangerous. We need to build up our district, not destroy it,” says the chair of the North-West District Council, Sebati Sebati.
Sebati is echoed by many people in Maun, the heart of the country’s tourism industry, who fear legalised gambling will lead to further destitution in what is the most impoverished district in Botswana.
Batawana paramount chief Kgosi Tawana II says, due to lack of job opportunities, people will see the casino as a way to get rich and spend their last money there.
Three years ago there was only one casino in the country, at the Gaborone Sun Hotel in the capital. The licence had been given to the then Holiday Inn in 1972. Today there is a casino in Francistown in the north-east and two in Selebi Phikwe in the south.
“It is a scandal,” says Charlotte Stoffels, a councillor in Selebi Phikwe. “Low-income people haunt the casinos. People can even steal in order to have money to spend.”
Sun International published its second application notice in July and residents had 60 days in which to object. The notice caused general alarm in Maun, especially as last year Leta Mosienyane, chair of the Casino Control Board, publicly announced that no licences would be granted in “sensitive areas such as the Okavango delta”. This would seem to preclude Maun, marketed internationally as the gateway to the delta.
Bruce Page-Wood, general manager of the Gaborone Sun, says until a recent newspaper report publishing objections, he was not aware of any major opposition to the application. He says: “Our company has always been very responsible wherever we have gone.” – Africa Information Afrique