27 Apr 2017

New land board members have been urged to work as a team to ensure optimal delivery on their mandate.
Speaking during the closing ceremony of an orientation workshop for new land board members, Assistant Minister of Land Management, Water and Sanitation Services, Mr Itumeleng Moipisi said the new members had been entrusted with a sensitive commodity which they must accord the care it deserved.
“Due to its unique capacity to stimulate economic growth at the national level as well as its ability to transform individual livelihoods, land is the mother of all factors of production in any economic and social development system,” he said.
He said it was for that reason that all must step up to the plate to ensure that they derived only the best positives.
Mr Moipisi said as the ultimate goalkeepers of land, they should ensure that Botswana does not slide into the civil strife as a result of issues of land mismanagement and poor administration.
He urged them to know the value of land as a resource and preached on sensitivity and controversies, adding that land management issues were by nature complex, and that they keep on changing as society assumes new dynamism with respect to the need and availability of land.
He said they could not overemphasise the emotive nature of land issues because there were countless and widespread cases of conflict and wars that had erupted in other countries causing strive and turmoil.
Meanwhile, Mr Moipisi urged members to familiarise themselves with the anti-corruption policy, adding that the issue of corruption in the public service was disturbing.
He also urged them to have a anti-corruption unit to equip them with the capacity to diagnose and fight corruption.
 “We rebuke in the strongest of terms any act that we would deem inappropriate in your conduct in the discharge of your functions,” said Mr Moipisi.

He also cautioned the new members on money laundering, saying it has taken paramount significance because the perpetrators keeped evolving into new and more sophisticated means to deceive and cheat.
He noted that land acquisition could be used as a covert means to clean dirty money through  land dealings or property development. He urged them to increase their vigilance in such matters.
Mr Moipisi further urged new land board members to find time to read available land bill’s literature so that they could familiarise themselves with all the frameworks.
He added that it would go a long way in facilitating their understanding and interpretation of all existing legal instruments which were created to enable them to do their work in an organised and orderly manner.
The assistant minister stated that they would be guided by various instruments of law which they must abide by in order to be focused.

He also emphasised on the code of conduct which members were expected to adhere to at all times.
The purpose of the workshop was to equip new land board members from all over the country with the necessary skills required for their new vocation.
Mr Moipisi said in the next three years they would find themselves placed under the glaring eye of the public at all times, adding that it was up to them to live up to the expectations and to conduct themselves with utmost integrity. ENDS