03 Oct 2018

Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Land Management, Water and Sanitation Services, Mr Thatayaone Dedede, has applauded Tlokweng Land Board for developing its customer service centre facility.

Officiating at launch of Tlokweng Land Board customer service center recently, Mr Dedede said the center was developed in 2015 after some members of land board attended a customer service training course.

“One of the key factors which they picked during the course was the need for public offices to have customer-friendly facilities hence the decision to come up with this initiative,” he said.

Mr Dedede said Tlokweng Land Board was the first to develop such facility.

He noted that the land board continued to be one of the best performing entities under his ministry, despite issues of land allocation back logs, which were a result of shortage of land.

Mr Dedede also highlighted that his ministry received less complaints from the public regarding Tlokweng Land Board.

“Like I have already mentioned, we receive low statistics of cases which implicate this land board. This must be an indicator that the land board is doing something right in terms of handling customer issues,” he said.

As for the customer service training, which members of the land board recently completed, Mr Dedede said it was a commendable show of commitment towards delivering quality service to the clients.

Meanwhile, Mr Dedede encouraged the land board to keep on exploring means through which to enhance their profile in the realm of public service delivery.

In his welcome remarks, Tlokweng Land Board chairperson, Mr Thuso Bogatsu, said the land board had prioritised customer service that he said was evidenced by the initiatives put in place.

He said the initiatives were meant to add value to the lives of Batswana through management of a resource that empowered them.

Mr Bogatsu said refurbishment of the service centre gave an opportunity to comply with the minimum requirements for buildings.

“We promote inclusivity, hence creating an environment where people with disabilities and elderly would have easy access to services,” he said.

Mr Bogatsu mentioned some of the features in the revamped customer service centre such as a spacious and comfortable waiting area, four seated service points, a television sets that carried educational material about land administration, a children’ s play room and a consultation room for confidential and escalated matters among others.

He said the service centre also included ramps at the centre’s entrances to enable a wheelchair user to reach assisting officials, the automated main entrance and the service points were made lower to allow face to face discussion.

He further noted the introduction of some initiatives such as orange money platform for payment of lease rentals, bank card swiping machine, use of bulk SMSs to remind people of invitations and lease debts as well as opening of offices during lunch break.

“In September 2015, we started a waiting list system of applications for residential plots. We currently have 55 000 applications while the Tlokweng Development Plan, if implemented as it is, would release about 8 000 plots up to 2025,” he said

Mr Bogatsu indicated that the land board experienced a high rate of transfer and sale of land more especially by the youth, he therefore appealed to them to make intelligent and sustainable decisions on matters related to land ownership.

“We also note a growing trend of fraud in land transactions which impacts negatively on our service delivery timeliness and forces the Land Board to adopt stringent measures to counter them, these included, multiple transfers of one plot, forgery by spouses and siblings as well as sale of plots by conmen who have no relationship with the plots,” said Mr Bogatsu. ENDS