28 Jun 2020

Minister of Infrastructure and Housing Development Mr Mmusi Kgafela has implored Batswana to promptly report amenities that needed maintenance to avert cost escalations. 

Speaking during Vice President’s visit to Mabutsane on Friday, he said proper management of amenities required that they should be inspected at certain intervals and be maintained when the need arose.  

He argued that such an arrangement would spare government extra costs that would have been spent when the inspection was done after a long time as some of the infrastructure would be in a dilapidated state and require large sums of money. 

He cited Moeng College that took a long time to be refurbished, thus some dilapidated structures at both the dormitories and classroom areas required multi-million pula.  

Mr Kgafela said the school’s facilities were constructed in those medieval days and had not been refurbished for a long time, but nonetheless the obnoxious state of the over 70-year-old school may change in the near future as it was scheduled for a multi-million pula revamp. 

He said the school was going to be renovated at a cost of over P100 million, adding that the tendering process had been opened, and expectations were  that construction that is expected to give Palapye a picturesque silhouette would start in the near future.  

Minister Kgafela said it was their mandate to provide quality infrastructure throughout the country, pointing budgetary constraints as an impediment.

He said his ministry was trying everything in its power to apportion decent accommodation throughout the country through Presidential Housing Appeal in which housing the poor was another step in the attempt to eradicate poverty in the country, Self Help Housing Agency and Botswana Housing Cooperation.

However, on a progressive basis, having access to permanent residential structures with secure tenure ensures internal and external privacy and providing adequate protection against the elements of poverty such as crime. Ends