14 Mar 2018

Vice President Mokgweetsi Masisi has urged education authorities in Maun to put in place a contingency plan to protect government facilities from natural disasters such as flooding.

Mr Masisi made the plea during his visit to the newly opened Maitlamo Junior Secondary School on Tuesday to appreciate the damages caused by the recent torrential rains, which resulted in floods. His visit was also to show compassion to the school community and to solicit ideas on how best they could address the situation more so that the school was newly constructed.

He also advised authorities to consider coming up with ways to harvest and recycle the water, adding that it was a pity for government to spend millions of Pula to dispose waste water when it could be harvested and used economically.
“Water is a precious mineral and we should not allow it to be contaminated, but rather we should encourage ways to make it economic,” he added.

Mr Masisi appreciated that to do elevation at the school was costly, but stressed the need to come up with a mitigation plan for natural disaster, adding that they should consider the consequences caused when the school was flooded.

The Vice President, who performed the school ground breaking in 2014, said it was important to protect the facilities to ensure they benefitted the future generation.  He also stated that some areas such as Maun were experiencing a serious water crisis

and believed that it was time to encourage the communities to build houses with roofing that enable water harvesting.

He also revealed that the budget for the school had been passed at Parliament to become a bill and informed the school management that ‘now you have a budget for the next 12 months to use in your operations’.

The school opened doors May 2016 admitting the first batch of Form Ones who were housed at Sedie JSS for the  first term.

It was constructed to rationalise the number of students to relief congestion in existing junior secondary schools in Maun.

Earlier on, the school head, Mr Badisa Tabona informed the Vice President and his entourage that they experienced floods on March 5 due to heavy rains, adding that they were forced to release students because the facilities were submerged. He said the flooding was caused by lack of storm water drainage system.

As a mitigation factor, he said the contractor at the site managed to dig a trench around the premises to ease water flow, but it was unfortunate because when the trench was full, it pushed water back ward. Mr Tabona mentioned that they experienced some damages, citing that a few blocks were not lit. He revealed that the kitchen and the dining hall were mostly affected as the water covered everything.

Works superintendent from department of Technical Services, Mr Thabo Mabilo explained that they did not anticipate that the area would be flooded, hence there was no provision for water flow.

Further, he said since the contractor was still on site, they agreed to dig a trench so that the area may not keep water for a long time due to sandy soil. He also stated that they had approached land board to allocate them a plot where they could establish a mini lake which would be fenced.

Mr Mabilo said they believe the mini lake would be the best plan as it would evacuate most of the water from the school while still waiting to secure funding to construct a storm water drainage system.

In addition, he said the water could be used for recycling, citing that the school could use it to water the grass at the playground pitch. Ends