04 Oct 2017

Acting President, Mr Mokgweetsi Masisi has informed residents of Machana that their area is now a recognised settlement, incorporated into Sese village.

Mr Masisi made the announcement during a kgotla meeting he addressed in the settlement on Tuesday.

He said the new status came along with a satellite primary school and citizen economic empowerment initiatives and interventions like poverty eradication programme with the view to improve the livelihoods of residents.

He also shared that Ngwaketse Landboard had since allocated 41 residential plots in the settlement.

Mr Masisi also area MP said the settlement would benefit from the Constituency Fund and have a solar powered lamp installed at its kgotla. He informed residents that the whole constituency would also be electrified through solar energy.

Mr Masisi explained that the lamps with Internet connectivity would be manufactured locally by the Botswana Institute of Technology and Research Innovation (BITRI) in Kanye.
He encouraged residents to acquire the lamps and benefit twofold.

He said the aim was to take advantage of the abundant solar energy to create employment for Batswana and diversify the economy from minerals. To this end, he appealed to parents to encourage their children to take their studies seriously and position themselves to pursue career paths along the lines of solar energy. He revealed that the school syllabus would be re-designed to accommodate the new technology.

He nonetheless, opined that the settlement should have been incorporated into Pitseng, which was nearer than Sese in the interest of service delivery. He also encouraged Batswana to apply for residential plots in gazetted areas near them rather than creating new settlements. He argued that the mushroom of new settlements strained government resources.

Meanwhile, wife Ms Neo Masisi has pledged to adopt the envisaged school and provide support every step all the way to ensure the project actualised.
Ms Masisi, who is an accountant by profession working for United Nations (UN), said it was critical for children to know that education was wealth, “without education there is no life,” she stressed.

Having worked for the Jwaneng mine since 1994 before she joined the UN, she said she felt there was no better way to give back to the community around the mine than to adopt the coming school.
Attendants led by Mr and Ms Masisi contributed some P100 towards buying of  bags of cement to build a toilet at the kgotla.

Mr Seduedi Maina volunteered to build the toilet structure for free, while the Southern District agriculture  coordinator, Ms Monia Mfolwe pledged 100 bricks, Mr Sebolao Rachaba 40 bricks and a bag of cement and roofing materials from the district commissioner, Mr Mmoloki Raletobane respectively. ENDS