12 Oct 2016

Minister of Land Management, Water and Sanitation Services, Mr Prince Maele has urged land boards to defer married people’s plot applications pending Parliament’s approval to amend the land policy.

Speaking during the 11^th leadership forum organised by his ministry in Palapye recentl, Mr Maele said few issues that Batswana wanted to be changed in the land policy were identified, in particular one man one plot issue.

He said married people are allowed to own two plots each, one on tribal and the other on state land therefore their applications should be deferred until approval of land policy amendment by Parliament.

Minister Maele said Cabinet agreed to the proposal to amend it and it awaits Parliament to approve it thus he informed land boards not to reject applications relating to this, rather should defer them.

He raised concern that some land boards continued to reject applications relating to this issue even though he instructed them to defer them.

The minister said following the approval of the land policy, he requested departments under his ministry to align their policies with the National Land Policy to ensure that there are no contradictions at land board level with the national policy directions.

He said the policy continues to be the working document, adding “when we encounter challenges, we should not shy away from going back to government to advise accordingly.”

Mr Maele also stated that the issue of plots allocated by Bogosi long ago needed further debate to establish whether it was justified.

Furthermore, Mr Maele who is also MP for Lerala/Maunatlala raised concern over the delivery of the systematic land registration exercise dubbed LAPCAS.

He said the time set for completion of the project was fast approaching thus a need to fast track it as Batswana are waiting.

Minister Maele also raised concern over staff and members’ welfare saying that there was little or no progress as staff was still acting in the same positions for too long and there were still issues of promotions, transfers and poor morale.

“I want you to tell me what your staff welfare strategy is and how you manage poor performance,” he said.

He also raised concern about corruption and conflict of interest that continue to let the ministry rankings down.

“I cannot afford to watch helplessly, corruption rearing its ugly head in our ministry. I directed that applications by all staff in the ministry and land board members be declared to me through the permanent secretary.”

He said to date, he has not received any application yet there are reported cases of corruption.

Touching on the Economic Stimulus Programme, Mr Maele said he promised the nation that he would deliver 37 000 serviced plots, 4481 housing units, 500 instalment purchase scheme and 250 youth housing units, maintain at least 500 housing units, build 540 public officers housing initiative among others.

He said this called for robust and watertight procurement processes, thus procuring entities must know what they want from the onset, requests for expression of interest must seriously be thought of beforehand and should not change the goal posts while in the middle of tendering.

He said out of the 21 ESP projects awarded, the ministry has started to hand over the completed 11 projects starting with the Phakalane link road. ENDS