12 Aug 2018

The Minister of Youth Empowerment, Sport and Culture Development, Mr Thapelo Olopeng has informed residents of Mandunyane that construction of the road which will connect their village to Shashe Mooke and Mathangwane is expected to commence in January 2019. 

Addressing a Kgotla meeting on August 9, the minister who is also the area MP explained that the transport and communications minister had informed him that designs for the roads had been completed and that they were currently preparing tender documents. 

Minister Olopeng further highlighted that street lights would be installed from the A1  road up to Mandunyane village.

 Furthermore, he told residents that a borehole which they long requested from the water affairs department had been availed to them for use in their horticulture garden. 

The borehole, he noted, would be fixed using some of the money from the constituency fund as it had not been operating for many years.

 Minister Olopeng said the water department had played its part by looking at the history of the borehole before handing it over to the community.

 “They have informed me that the water yield in the borehole is very high,” he added. 

On other issues, he mentioned that their Kgotla office would be maintained in due course, noting that maintenance work had been delayed by a procurement dispute which had since been addressed.

 Consequently, he informed residents that their village had grown exponentially and applauded residents for agreeing to give government their ploughing fields to make way for plot allocations.

The minister was responding to concerns from Kgosi Joshua Joel who had complained that none of the projects in the village had commenced in the current financial year. 

Kgosi Joel thanked government for agreeing to pay all six headmen of arbitration in the village, who he said had been doing a good job over a long period of time without compensation. 

In Folley village, Kgosi Olebile Khumo decried the slow pace of connecting electricity to the Kgotla office and the delay in opening their clinic. 

 He further urged government to avail a tribal secretary and a vehicle to improve service delivery in the village.

 Kgosi Khumo requested for security at the Kgotla offices to be improved in order to safeguard government property.

 He also raised concern on poor water distribution and the slow pace of land allocation in the village.

 Responding to his concerns, Minister Olopeng said the nurses’ house had been completed and noted that this would pave way for the opening of the clinic.

 He, however told the residents that they were waiting for the Botswana Power Corporation to connect power to both the kgotla and clinic.

 “The tribal secretary will also be coming soon. We have also asked the Water Utilities Corporation to increase water connection in the village by availing a temporary stand pipe while they waited to resolve other issues,” he added. ENDS