08 Sep 2019

Like many prospective candidates across the country, Kgalagadi North hopefuls  had an opportunity to solicit votes from electorate during the Radio Botswana parliamentary debates in Hukuntsi recently.

The Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) candidate, Ms Talita Monnakgotla said that the constituency still had a high rate of poverty. She suggested that the tourism sector could be used to help the people as it had potential in that constituency.

She said that she would advocate for the tarring of Lokgwabe-Mabuasehube road to boost tourism in the area.

“Government recently indicated that it wants more citizens to be involved in the tourism sector through various ways such as hotel tourism. If the road was to be tarred it will increase the number of tourists in the area,” she said.

Ms Monnakgotla also said if voted to Parliament, she would advocate for the improvement of other sectors in the constituency such as education and health as argued that many clinics around the area were in a dire need of midwives and transport.

Ms Monnakgotla also said that as the area depended on agriculture, the people of Kgalagadi North needed to be assisted with schemes such as borehole drilling. She conceded that most settlements around Kgalagadi

North such as Ukhwi, Zuutshwa, Ngwatle, Hunhukwe and Maake had bad roads that needed to be tarred.

Concrning water shortage in the area, Ms Monnakgotla conceded that indeed the issue was a challenge, but said that there was a tender to connect the area to Ncojane, but that the tender was currently being contested at court.

In his debate, the former area MP and Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) candidate, Mr Phillip Khwae also said in order to address poverty in the constituency, people should be empowered with the required skills.

“During my term as the area MP I used to partner with organisations such as Skillshare International to train people on finance and management skills. This placed them in a better position to formulate business proposals and access government initiatives, and during my tenure this constituency was the highest in as far as government initiatives are concerned due to my efforts,” he said.

He also said that poor roads to the settlements made it difficult to take services there as they were hardly ever maintained. He indicated that while the Lokgwabe-Mabuasehube road needed some maintenance, if given the vote his priority would however, be on the Hukuntsi-Ncojane road.

Mr Khwae also said that if voted he would advocate for the shifting of the wildlife management areas to create land for the people. He also decried the high level of water shortage in the area. ENDS