01 Jun 2016

Assistant Minister of Local Government and Rural Development has informed residents of Tutume that bogosi issues are sensitive, hence the need to address them after proper consultation.

Mr Frans Van Der Westhuizen was responding to the residents’ questions regarding their chieftainship during a kgotla meeting in Tutume on May 31.

Residents had informed the assistant minister that it seemed there was no main kgotla in their village, but only four main dikgotlana of Magapatona, Madikwe, Selolwane and Thini.

Furthermore, they said since the retirement of Kgosi Jenamo Magapatona last September, there had not been any replacement, despite communication with their tribal administration authority in Serowe.

Residents asked the assistant minister to intervene in the issue and request the paramount chief in Serowe to come to their village to resolve standing issues of chieftainship.
Mr Van Der Westhuizen said his ministry through the minister would tackle the issues and encourage Bangwato authorities to come forth to resolve the issues.

He, however, urged the residents to resolve the issues by themselves so that when the authorities come on board the issues would have been discussed at village level.

The assistant minister said the ministry through Economic Stimulus Programme (ESP) would undertake Tutume infrastructure development project this financial year, which was shelved as result of economic downturn.
The project included construction of internal roads which has three bridges crossing Tutume River.

He said the design was at an audit stage and it was expected that by July, it would be completed while tendering will be done in September, this year with the contractor expected to be on site by October. 

He said expectation was that the project should commence on time as they did not want to have issues of over spending with the project already costing almost P400 million. He tasked the Tutume sub district authorities to speed up on consultation with the residents particularly those that would be affected by the project.

He emphasised on proper records keeping because in past experienced poor recording keeping on properties which at a later stage impacted on them. He noted that compensation should be paid off basing on available records not assumptions.

“We want to work within budget not to have overrunning cost unnecessarily,” he said. Ends