05 Jun 2014

While Botswana’s population has continued to increase substantially over the years, the land resource has remained fixed and is now under severe pressure.

The President, Lt Gen. Seretse Khama Ian Khama said this when addressing a kgotla meeting in Gweta on June 5. He said this phenomenon was not unique to Botswana as, internationally, boundaries were fixed while the number of people requiring land was growing at an alarming rate.

The President was responding to concerns raised by Kgosi Lesupamang Mapini of Gweta who decried shortage of land in their area, saying it was hampering development in his village.

Kgosi Mapini had informed the President that since establishment in the 1930s, the population of Gweta had grown to 7 000 and was putting pressure on agricultural land. He also mentioned that they encountered a lot of problems when trying to get a lease for the farm owing to bureaucracy by government employees.

President Khama noted that Batswana had to realise that not everyone could have a farm, adding that some people had even suggested that government should stop allocating farms, reduce farm land, national parks and game reserves.

The President informed residents that developmentd took up a huge chunk of land, especially roads and noted that there was no how government could stop constructing roads as they were crucial. Also, he said reducing parks and game reserves could have a negative impact on the tourism sector, which generated revenue for the economy.

Reducing farms, he highlighted, would not be a solution as in future, government would have to go back and ask for more farm land because of future projected population increases. 



Consequently, the President wanted to know why residents of Gweta were not using the 10 000 hectare BLDC farm, which was allocated to them over a year ago. He urged residents to seek assistance from government if they encountered problems in utilising the allocated farm.

On other issues, President Khama informed the residents that if the BLDC farm was not enough for them, government would continue to explore other avenues to find alternative land for them.

With regards to the issue of radios for the elderly, the President said he came up with the initiative after realising that most of the elderly people were living alone most of the time, hence missing out on companionship that was available in other families.

He said the radios also served as an empowerment tool as they gave the elderly opportunity to listen to news from within and outside the country.

However, President Khama informed them that it was impossible to give every elderly person a radio and said if no one qualified in the village, the radios should be given to deserving people in other parts of the country.

The Village Development Committee (VDC) chairperson, Mr Ledule Baraki had also told the President that because of the criteria used to award radios to deserving elderly people, all the 10 radios that were allocated had not been issued because no one qualified. “The criterion is that an elderly person has to be living alone and in our village we do not have such people,” he said.

Mr Baraki had also requested for an additional telephone line at the kgotla, training for dikgosi on leadership, payment of headman of arbitration, construction of more police and agriculture offices. He also requested government to assist them to improve their quarantine kraals and a waiver for the insertion of bolus on their cattle.



For his part, the Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Mr Peter Siele explained that while there were 90 000 elderly people identified, only 9 918 qualified to receive radios.

The President assigned the district commissioner, Ms Thobo Mapitse and the area Member of Parliament, Mr Rayner Makosha to ensure that the farm was given to residents as soon as possible. He also donated chairs, blankets and bibles to the kgotla. Ends