28 Feb 2018

Assistant minister of Land Management, Water and Sanitation Services, Mr Itumeleng Moipisi has implored Kgalagadi North constituents to safeguard land and water for future prosperity.

Officiating during the ministry’s open day in Kang recently, Mr Moipisi said the ministry was faced with a mammoth task to ensure proper management and administration of land and water resources and that government could not manage alone.

Therefore, he called for support from other stakeholders to ensure sustainable use of water.

He said Kgalagadi region was faced with shortage of land and as a host, they were charged to execute sustainable land management strategies that would help to maximise productivity out of the limited resources, as they were compelled to accommodate several land uses including residential, agricultural, and commercial as well as wildlife management.

Mr Moipisi said Kang and Hukuntsi villages were currently experiencing a surge in the demand of land as they were sprawling, outpacing the allocations, and in the process caused some developmental strains on the land plots that they already had.

He said Kang alone had an escalating demand for land and currently had a waiting list of 880 applications for residential plots received from 2014 to date.

There is also a waiting list of 658 applications for ploughing fields received from 2014 to date, he said.

He said in order to curtail long waiting lists, Hukuntsi Sub Landboard would liaise with village leadership to identify empty pockets within the village for allocations, and once the in-fills had been completed, it would now extend to the acquisition of identified agricultural that were currently occupied by individuals.

He noted that land acquisition process was usually lengthy and tedious as it involved negotiations with land holders who at times deemed government compensation rates way below market rates.

Meanwhile, Mr Moipisi said the ministry also played a key role in the promotion of local economic growth and youth empowerment as Landboard allocated 30 business plots to Ministry of Youth Empowerment, Sport and Cultural Development meant for different uses in Kgalagadi North specifically for youth and out of that number, 15 had been allocated to Kang youth.

In addition, he said this year, 22 business plots would be allocated to the general public and seven would be in Kang.

Furthermore, he said the process of advertising the plots was ongoing and expected to have been finalised before end of March.

On other issues, he decried failure by some land holders to pay lease rentals for their business plots as per the lease agreement.

He said Hukuntsi Sub -landboard was owed about P4.8 million  for lease rentals and amongst the top 50 defaulters, 28 were from Kang alone and their debt stood at P1.2 million.

With regard to land registration project, he said a total of 3 799 plots in Kang had been surveyed and so far 3 433 plots had been claimed and adjudicated, hence 366 plots remained unclaimed despite Landboard’s pleas through kgotla meetings and other forums.

In the area of water, Mr Moipisi said Kgalagadi was probably the hardest hit region in the country because of limited sources of portable water both for domestic and livestock.

However, he noted that the ministry continued to identify boreholes across the region to augment the current water supply, but in most cases they encountered situations whereby there was either very low yielding boreholes or contaminated flows.

On a positive note, he said there had been some progress as some water reticulation project in some villages had been completed while others were still awaiting tender adjudications.

He said those projects were meant for short term interventions to alleviate the situation, but as a long term measure, Matlhoaphuduhudu water transfer project to reticulate water from Ncojane to Matsheng area was already on cards.

Mr Moipisi said they appreciated the challenges which Water Utilities Corporation had been experiencing of late, especially alleged wrong billing.
He implored all to ensure that water was conserved at all times and also encouraged them to report cases of vandalism on WUC infrastructures.

Earlier in her welcome remarks, Kgosi Basadi Seipone pleaded with Landboard management to work closely with dikgosi as they were the land custodians in their respective villages.

The open day was held under the theme “safeguard your land and water for future prosperity”. Ends