STEALING LEGALLY

Vice Chairperson of Mahalapye Concerned Farmers, Otisitswe Diraditsile tells The Midweek Sun that they have been impoverished by Oarabile Tsotso (also known as Moyo), who does not only steal cattle but makes sure he leaves farmers empty-handed.This is why farmers felt it was very important that all the affected throng the court when Moyo was appearing before the Judge, to make a statement that they are not happy with Moyo and may be even get more farmers to come out and tell the evil deeds of the alleged thief.He said that some farmers are have been busy traversing the country looking for their missing animals, not aware that the animals have long been sold.“Our cattle have been going missing mysteriously, we did not know what was happening but now we have a lead. Moyo has been stealing our cattle, re tlhasetswe ke motho, hence us coming together as concerned Mahalapye farmers,” he said, adding that in one case, an elderly farmer lost 15 of his cattle and now his kraal is empty.What shocks the farmers is that when they check on BAITS, the Ministry of Agriculture animal registration platform, their registered animal statutes show that they (farmers) have sold their cattle ‘legally’.“It does not make sense. You will see information that I sold my cow to a certain butcher while I did not do so. We wonder what is really happening,” Diraditsile wondered.For a farmer to sell his cattle, there are procedures, checks and balances followed including consent from the owner.“Verification of farmer is done at Botswana Police, then once the police are satisfied, Veterinary office issues the seller with a permit to sell the cattle.“We wonder what is happening at Botswana Police because they have to check all and satisfy themselves that the person selling is the true owner of the cattle or maybe in the absence of the owner, there has to be a letter and identity documents of the owner,” Diraditsele said.They suspect that something fishy might be going on. They are not sure if some police officers are now conniving with thieves or there are some gaps that thieves are taking advantage of. He said they do not blame the Ministry of Agriculture because they give out permits looking at the information received from the police, which usually has police stamps.In another bizarre and shocking incident, Diraditsile said they recently realised from one of their members who is a close family member to him, that their mother, who died in March last year, ‘sold' her cow in October of the same year.“The Ministry of Agriculture system shows that the deceased old woman sold a cow some months after she died, how is that really possible? How did the police see that as normal? We are dealing with a crisis here,” a worried Diraditsile said.Mahalapye station commander Omphile Malemenyane confirmed that they are holding Tsotso in custody and he will be in court this week in connection with two to three cases in which he is being accused of stock theft.“We arrested him following a discovery that 11 cows belonging to one owner were sold in Oodi village late last year. We have since received more complaints but the farmers are yet to report formally to us.“We have advised them to go into the system and check how many of their cattle have been sold and to whom, if they do that, we will be able to make proper investigations,” he said.He added that it would be naive to assume that Tsotso is behind all the cattle that have gone missing. He might be implicated but procedures need to be followed.Malemenyane was not in a position to disclose if some police officers might be involved in some fraudulent activities regarding the sale of cattle in his area.“We are currently doing investigations and after all is concluded, we will be able to know how Tsotso managed to sell the cattle without consent forms from cattle owners,” said Malemenyane.

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STEALING LEGALLY