12 Mar 2015

The passenger train is scheduled to return to service, the Minister of Transport and Communications, Mr Tshenolo Mabeo, has said.

Presenting the budget estimates for 2015/16 financial year in Parliament on March 11, Minister Mabeo said the passenger train service would operate between Francistown and Lobatse.

“The plan is to have a daily scheduled night service from each end by December 2015,” he said. The minister said the daily schedules would be considered to augment road transport during the holidays and said a tendering process for about 36 passenger coaches was ongoing and is expected to be awarded in April 2015.

Meanwhile, the minister presented P3.7 billion as total budget estimates for 2015/16 financial year.

Out of the amount, P2.1 billion is for recurrent and P1.615 billion would be spent for development purposes.  Central Transport Organisation (CTO) gets the largest share of the recurrent budget, 28 per cent or P585 million followed by the Department of Roads which gets P550.8 million.

The remaining amount is to be shared amongst Corporate Services, Road Transport and Safety, Telecommunications and Postal Services and Information Technology.

The minister said 50 per cent of the development budget, or P809.5 million has been allocated for roads projects. “Major roads to benefit from these resources include the upgrading of Tonota-Francistown road which is expected to be completed in October 2015, Charleshill-Ncojane road, the Botswana Integrated Transport Project (BITP) as well as the bridges of Kazungula and Mohembo,” he said. The

Minister said P410 million goes to telecommunications development and the amount would be used for different projects such as international connectivity, backbone networks to upgrade Sekoma-Tshabong-Struizendam and Sehithwa-Mohembo-Seronga links to fibre optic technology for increased capacity and local access network.

Air Transport Infrastructure has been allocated P357 million for Terminal Buildings and Air Traffic Control Towers at Maun and Kasane airports and procurement of equipment and systems upgrade to improve security and safety in the aviation sector as well as continuation of Sir Seretse Khama International Airport Terminal Building. 

Minister Mabeo said P39.182 million would be spent on various projects such as computerisation, transport control and road safety programmes. ENDS