22 Jan 2020

Member of Parliament for Maun West, Mr Dumelang Saleshando, has assured residents that community constituency projects (CCP) will be implemented as expected.

He was responding to comments raised by some residents during a kgotla meeting on January 20. 

They had expressed concern over delayed constituency development projects, even though government had allocated each constituency P10m to undertake community projects every financial year. 

They said they had not benefited from the previous funding since no projects were implemented and requested the MP to intervene.

Mr Saleshando acknowledged the plea and said he had been updated on the issue by council officials and agreed that pending projects be implemented as agreed with the community.

He said they agreed that funds allocated for the said projects should be used as planned, promising that going forward he would do all in his power to ensure new projects planned under CCP programme were  implemented well on time.

The MP, who is also Leader of Opposition in Parliament, informed residents that since the constituency had 10 wards, it was realised that they could not allocate each P1 million because residents needed to undertake major projects, which would impact positively on their lives.

He stated that they had as such agreed to allocate funds to five wards this financial year, while the remaining five would benefit in the next financial year.

He also pointed out that he had introduced five factors which the community had to consider when proposing constituency projects. One of such factors are job creation saying the community should state how many residents could be employed during project implementation and after completion.

Secondly, the project should ensure young people’s role, citing that they had agreed to fund construction of stalls to cater for small entrepreneurs operating in the mall.

Mr Saleshando stated that a decision had been reached to engage young people to assist with the design proposal of the stalls and be compensated for their innovation.

Other factors to consider should be; how the project complements existing ones, how the project makes a difference in other wards and it should be linked to education.

Residents learnt that a decision had been made to construct a satellite school (standard 1-3) at Boro since pupils were travelling long distances to access education, which also put their lives at risk. 

Mr Saleshando also decried poor performance in schools across the district.

On other issues, the MP informed residents that local participation in tourism and improvement of both internal and major roads leading to Maun would top his priority list for discussion in Parliament.

He said although Maun was a tourism destination, the roads left a lot to be desired thus affecting the growth of the sector.

He cited major roads such as Francistown/Maun and Shakawe/Maun, saying they were in a disastrous state and wished the government could do something as it was reported that funding had been secured from China to improve the state of the roads across the country.

Mr Saleshando vowed to ensure that locals benefit from their prestigious resource, noting that currently, they were spectators while foreigners were in control of the tourism industry.

 

“Currently the locals are providing cheap labour and I will do my best to ensure our people have full participation in the tourism industry and contribute to their economy. It is disturbing as even villages/settlements hosting big companies such as five star hotels are underdeveloped, while the inhabitants are in a poverty,” he lamented. ends