17 Mar 2019

Ministry of Land Management, Water and Sanitation is steadfast in prioritising implementation of various programmes and projects to promote management of land and water resources for socio- economic development.

This was said by the Minister of Land Management Water and Sanitation, Mr Kefentse Mzwinila when presenting the ministry’s 2019/2020 budget proposal to Parliament recently.

Mr Mzwinila requested the approval of P4.2 billion as total budget estimates for 2019/2020 financial year, noting that P3.3 billion would be for the development budget and P889 million for recurrent budget.

The proposed development budget, he said comprised of projects in sustainable land management, infrastructure development, water supply pipelines, water supply and sanitation networks.

Of the proposed recurrent budget amount, Minister Mzwinila noted that a total of P494 million was for Revenue Support Grant for the 12 land boards and their subordinate authorities while the remaining P394 million of the recurrent budget was for the ministry departments.

The ministry, he said, continued to facilitate the productive use of land resources as a way of contributing towards national economic development.

“Through our land banks programme, which reserves certain land parcels for various uses including tourism, livestock production, agribusiness and other uses, we continuously strive to enhance their productivity.

We continue to identify, earmark and set aside specific land assets for re-purpose to entities and projects with potential grand scale economic implications,” he said.

He said 399 and 368 hectares of land had been reserved in Francistown and Lobatse respectively to facilitate the Special Economic Zones Authority (SEZA) to achieve its mandate.

 In an endeavour to entrench the spirit of cluster planning, Mr Mzwinila stated that preparations for the Gaborone region master plan were underway. “The project is regarded as a signature project that would epitomise the actualisation of regional planning for which the National Spatial Plan advocates,” he said.

He said provision of serviced land continued to be a challenge though efforts had been made to provide infrastructure to enable developments across the country.

In this regard, Mr Mzwinila stated that his Ministry was currently developing a National Land Servicing programme to facilitate infrastructure development, expected to be completed during the 2019/20 financial year.

 The strategy, he said would encompass construction of roads complete with storm water drainage, water reticulation, electricity connection and upgrading of sanitation networks.

With regard to water infrastructure development, Mr Mzwinila indicated that the North- South Carrier 2 from Palapye to Mmamashia treatment works remained his ministry’s flagship water infrastructural development initiative with the largest share of the water sector portion of the development budget.

He further stated that efforts to access additional water from neighbouring countries were continuing, following the signing of a Memorandum of Agreement towards the Lesotho-Botswana Water Transfer Project Implementation.

The project, he said, was currently at the phase of feasibility study and was expected to be concluded in June 2020. ENDS