GABORONE, July 7 (Xinhua) -- Botswana Chinese General Chamber of Commerce and Gaborone Overseas Chinese Service Center on Tuesday donated 3,135,000 Pula (about 279,910 U.S. dollars) to Botswana COVID-19 Relief Fund in Gaborone, the capital city of Botswana.

"We collected more than 5 million Pula to fight COVID-19 pandemic, today we donate cash amounting to 3.1 million Pula, while the balance will go towards supporting the communities, the poor and the needy," said Hu Zhongwen, chairman of the Botswana Chinese General Chamber of Commerce and Gaborone Overseas Chinese Service Center, representing 431 donors from the Chinese community.

"We have donated 100,000 Pula to the University of Botswana to support the student study online, we also paid for the food of more than 100,000 Pula for the Free Environment for Street Kids Trust, we will continue to try our best to support the government to fight COVID-19 pandemic. Botswana government did very well so far and we stand with the government to fight the battle and win the war." said Hu.

In his appreciation speech after receiving the donation, Vice President of Botswana Slumber Tsogwane said the war is still on and he is thankful to the stakeholders in the fight against COVID-19 and their hard work.

"We have eased our lockdown to allow the economy to recover and enable the transition into the new normal. The challenges still lay ahead and we promise all citizens that we will never take our eye off the ball in our endeavour to fight COVID-19. We must continue to hold each other by hands in our fight against COVID- 19." Said Tsogwane.