02 Dec 2018

Government is committed to ensuring that Batswana have access to land and is working on guaranteeing that basic infrastructure is provided so that such land could be of use to those who access it, be it for residential, commercial or agricultural use.

This was said by Land Management, Water and Sanitation Services minister, Mr Kefentse Mzwinila while making his contribution to the State-of-the-Nation-Address (SONA) debate in Parliament on November 29. Mr Mzwinila, who is also Mmadinare MP, said he had realised that many of the MPs in responding to the SONA, had expressed concern about issues pertaining to the ministry including access to land and water, prompting him to address them in his own deliberation.

He said through the Land Administration Procedures Capacity and System, government had been working on ensuring that that all plots in Botswana were surveyed, legally owned and recorded in a coherent database.

“The challenge is in Botswana traditional land ownership structure in our rural areas where there would be homesteads, farming lands and grazing areas as well as concession areas.  As such, villages expand into agricultural land and many

Batswana are uncooperative in allowing for their land to be appropriated for further expansion of villages, which would give us more residential land,” Mr Mzwinila said.

He differed with those parliamentarians, who suggested that in order to reduce the waiting list, backlog of people, who had long applied for residential plots, should be allocated land that was not serviced.
“We would be creating a challenge if we allocated land that is not serviced. We need to ensure that plots would have access to road and other amenities such as water, sanitation and electricity. In terms of spatial planning, servicing is about planning ahead for basic infrastructure, such as where clinics, schools and other developments would be located in future,” Mr Mzwinila noted.

Although government wanted to ensure all Batswana households have access to land ownership, he said there were some individuals who wanted to be allocated plots in order to sell.

In terms of water provision, Mr Mzwinila said there were ongoing projects, which were all aimed at ensuring better access to water.  Some of the projects, he said were done in partnership with the World Bank, some as part of the eleventh National Development Plan (NDP 11) and Water Utilities Cooperation (WUC).

He highlihgted that Kanye, Thamaga and Moshupa were due to benefit from the North-South water carrier upgrade.

However, he said the initiative had been stalled by some people refusing to make way for the development adding that the move could end up prompting compulsory acquisitions of the land.

Mr Mzwinila said waste water recycling would also assist in access to portable water, but the process would have to include addressing negative public perceptions about the ‘toilet to tap’ recycling.
“Larger scale projects that would in future assist in the access to water include regional projects such as the Chobe-Zambezi project, drawing water from the Lesotho Highlands and Namibia-Botswana desalination plant. Meanwhile, Mr

Mzwinila has thanked government for projects in Mmadinare constituency, saying they would benefit from the Serule-Mmadinare water transfer scheme, a new police station, the mini-stadium to be constructed as well as projects funded by the P10 million constituency fund. Ends