Kutlo Motseta
24th June 2025
AT & T began its journey 25 years ago, from a single bus traveling from Gaborone to Hukuntsi to fleet of 97 vehicles (50 busses), making revenues over P140 million making it one of the leading Botswana owned transport companies in Botswana.
The family enterprise which was conceived through the efforts of a married couple, Abel and Talitha Monnakgotla is a story of resilience and determination.
Eager to get involved in business, they both left their jobs and took up entrepreneurship, which was tough in the early days as they had two very young children. Monnakgotla previously worked as an information technology engineer whilst his wife worked as a laboratory technician.
In 1998 the company unofficially began operating but was officially registered on the 20th June 2000.
It now has a diversified business portfolio which include real estate, bed and breakfasts, meals, laundry services, bureau exchange services, transport, rental cars, air and road travel ticket sales which fall under its seven subsidiary companies. Its clients include De Beers, Mascom and Botswana Telecommunication Corporation (BTC).
It is a 100% Botswana owned and has 180 employees 95% of whom are Batswana and is head quartered at the main mall with satellite offices at all international airports in Botswana. The company has gone international and has offices at Park Station in Johannesburg, South Africa.
“Our mantra is it can be done … we can’t wait to maintain our pole position in the travel sector … we are still offering travelling services to Joburg and Cape Town,” said Talitha Monnakgotla.
The company is led by a progressive couple who are taking on the clean energy transportation challenges of the 21st century.
“Elon Musk is leading the way but we are going to get involved … don’t be surprised if I announce that we will be introducing [electric] driverless cars in the future,” quipped Abel Monnakgotla.
However, the company has not been without its challenges. It lost two buses in 2001 (minibus) and 2018 (bus) to accidents and two buses to arson in 2021 and 2022. Like many companies it has dealt with cases of theft and damages caused by third parties. It had a P5 million case of theft by servant, which they managed to solve and resulted in the partial repayment of the money.
The company also felt hard done by some government policies which they say restricted established operators from receiving some permits to make provision for new entrants, which they feel have stifled their growth.
“We think this is unfair cause in retail business they can open as many shops as they want to,” said Abel Monnakgotla.
Being in the transportation business they were expectedly hard hit by the covid pandemic, which delayed its plans to list as a public company.
“We want to go public even it means getting involved in something that will be done by our successors, lots is required, we are hoping that … it will be done. It’s a way of growing and getting the public involved and growing (local) jobs,” said Abel Monnakgotla.
Succession plans and quality staff is one of cornerstones of the company’s sustainability and growth strategies. Most of its staff possess diploma, bachelor’s and master’s degrees certificates and some have been sponsored to further their studies.
“We are getting old … we are about to retire our children have been studying at university,” said Abel Monnakgotla.
Monnakgotla is an information technology expert with a Master in Business Administration (MBA) and so it is little wonder the company mobilises technology for its operations.
“We are highly computerised and use cloud computing for our cyber security,” he said.
The company will be launching applications which enables customers to pay online and will also be upgrading their busses to better cater for paraplegic its customers.
The company has been working with the sports community for a long time, supporting local sporting events and sponsoring long walks e.g. the Jwaneng Bushwalk and Jwaneng mine client activities.
“We have already partnered with sport … we will continue to do so we are looking for people in sport because they like to travel,” said Talitha Monnakgotla.
“We have done football tournaments from 2005,” she said, citing the Yecho Football Tournament (Macheng Area – Hukuntsi), Thamaga Football Tournament (attended to by Tiro Lepotokisi and former Sports Minster Tumiso Rakgare), the Mogoditshane Matlolapata New Year Tournament and endorsements for the national senior men and women’s national teams, including a P1 million payment in the early 2000’s before such ideas were ‘fashionable.’
Talitha thanked her hardworking staff, the public for their loyalty and prayed for a prosperous tournament at the Women’s African Cup of Nations WAFCON cup in Morocco.
“We would like to wish our ladies team (Mares) in Morocco all the best …. we are reaping the fruits of our [Mares investment] success,” said Talitha Monnakgotla in closing remarks.
