30 Jan 2020

 Residents of Thito East ward in Maun East constituency have been informed that there are no plans to construct a second police station in Maun.

Responding to comments raised during a kgotla meeting recently, Maun East MP, Mr Goretetse Kekgonegile said the police station was not included in the National Development Plan, but indicated that he once met with some police officials who also stressed the need for another police facility. 

He said the police were serving a big area, revealing that the issue would be debated in Parliament so that it could be catered for in the 2020/21 financial year.

He also appreciated that Maun had been upgraded to a divisional unit headed by a senior assistant commissioner and believed that challenges faced by police officers should be addressed accordingly.

Mr Kekgonegile decried shortage of transport for police officers, which he said resulted in late response to incident reports. 

He also assured residents that he would follow up the fish pond project, which they had long requested. 

On other issues, residents were informed that water shortage would be addressed since a decision had been taken to assist Water Utilities Corporation (WUC) with funding from Community Constituency Programme (CCP).

The corporation, he said, decried financial constraints to refurbish and connect electricity to some of the boreholes to ensure 100 per cent capacity of water supply.

Mr Kekgonegile said a decision was taken to assist WUC to equip two boreholes, adding that he had engaged the MP for Maun West to see if they could source funds from CCP to equip the remaining boreholes.

He stated that the corporation admitted that it was experiencing difficulties to meet the water supply demand as it was using five boreholes at Kunyere, but there were some boreholes at Shashe and Matlapana, which needed to be refurbished to meet the demand. 

He said the project would take three months and urged residents to be patient since their expectations were that beginning of April, the water situation in Maun would be improved. 

Mr Kekgonegile also informed residents that government had allowed trophy sales of hunting licences except ivory, whose international trade was regulated by the Convention on International Trade on Endangered Species of wild flora and fauna (CITES), to which Botswana was a signatory.

Residents also learnt that the government had extended hunting quota allocations to community trusts that are managing concession areas zoned with a component of hunting for the 2020 hunting season that would commence in April to September 2020.  

Residents had earlier argued that there was need for another police station as the village had grown and the current facility was overwhelmed.

Village Development Committee (VDC) chairperson, Ms Hilda Sethaile, said they had long requested for land to venture into the project.

She said they also had an investor, who was willing to assist them financially, but later they learnt that government had showed interest to assist the community under the poverty eradication programme without consulting the VDC.

Surprisingly, she said nothing had been done and she requested the MP to intervene, noting that the community had pinned its hopes on the project since VDC was struggling financially. Ends