04 Apr 2016

Civil Aviation Authority Botswana (CAAB) has extended a helping hand to Senonnori ward’s Village Development Committee (VDC) by renovating the committee’s house that has not been in use for almost three years.

Speaking during the handing over of the house in Maun on Friday, CAAB board member, Mr Motebele Sentle said CAAB identified the house for renovations as part of their corporate social responsibility initiative last year.

He explained that the project, which started in January this year, took a period of one month 12 days to be completed and CAAB had to date paid over P43 249 000 for materials and labour. The renovated house has one bedroom, sitting room, kitchen, bathroom and toilet.

“Due to the current economic situation, VDCs as community institutions or structures, do not have adequate funds to carry out necessary maintenance on their properties and with time the properties become inhabitable resulting in loss of income to the property owners,” explained Mr Sentle.

Mr Sentle said the house was built in 1996 as a labour intensive project under the Contagious Bovine Pluearenium Programme (CBPP) following the 1996 outbreak of the cattle lung disease  in 1995. 

He said during that time all cattle in Ngamiland were killed in effort to eradicate the disease and this negatively affected the economic survival of the community.

He noted that as a result, government started implementing various projects to mitigate the situation and one of those was infrastructural development as a way of creating employment opportunities for communities affected. 

“Most projects undertaken were housing due to shortage of accommodation in Maun. Houses were handed down to VDCs so that they could benefit from accruing rentals from these properties,” he said.

He was hopeful that the development made to the house will help Sennonori VDC in carrying out their responsibility towards the community. “I believe the refurbished house will be leased out for purposes of generating income for the community,” he added.

When receiving the house, senior assistant council secretary, Mr Motshwariemang Matseka said Sennonori VDC had not been able to generate sufficient income due to lack of infrastructure and thanked CAAB for their work.

“I believe the house will have a great impact on Sennonori people as VDC will be able to generate income” he said.

 Mr Matseka said VDCs were faced with the challenges of lack of funds which at times hindered them to make renovations to their houses or carry out other community projects. He said contributions like this were appreciated. Ends