26 Mar 2018

Sowa Town mayor Mr George Maphane has said Sowa Town Council was at an advanced stage to undertake a Local Economic Development (LED) initiative project.  

Addressing a full council session recently, Mayor Maphane informed the House that following their district consultation which they held sometime last year, the district had identified a catalytic project under tourism which they were aiming to start developing through LED.

He noted that by far, the district had achieved a milestone in developing a business plan for the project and highlighting that the project entailed construction of a lodge, establishment of a cultural village and a camping site.

He further added that the project would also have other value chain tourism related activities such as game drive, bird watching, quad bike rides as well as back packing excursions.

However, the mayor pointed out that a lot needed to be done in terms of marketing and developing their town into a tourist attraction area by generating the needed public and private investment that could attract tourists and spur economic activities in the town.

He therefore appealed for inputs from different key stakeholders such as the private sector, Botash, Botswana Tourism Organisation, Local Enterprise Authority and Department of Wildlife and National Parks in order to effectively deliver the LED project.

“It must be particularly noted that the project is meant primarily to benefit the community of Sowa through local employment and engaging them to manage other components of the project such as the camp site and cultural village,” he emphasised.

Meanwhile, the mayor also updated the House that the civic authority was in the process of developing the guidelines on development of parks and open spaces within the town.

Mr Maphane said the directive stipulated that a quota of 30 per cent of the available open space being civic and community recreational plots should be reserved for youth to utilise free of charge to set up temporary stalls for the purpose of selling their products as vendors or flea markets provided such usage is compatible with land use and other regulatory requirements.

Furthermore, he explained that the guidelines would also cover outsourcing of development of open spaces that the council did not have the capacity to develop. These, he said would help the town in the sense that the open spaces would serve their purpose as well as create operational spaces for small businesses which had been a challenge in the district for a long time. The exercise, he said was expected to be completed by June this year.

On other issues, mayor Maphane called on the youth to seek funding through Youth Development Fund, adding that the number of youth projects funded had been the same for some time now despite many interventions to sensitise them to make use of the fund.

He therefore encouraged fellow councillors to urge the youth to make use of the fund more so that in the next financial year as a district they had sourced funds to address the challenges of lack of operational space which had hindered growth in the uptake of economic empowerment projects. ENDS