23 Sep 2020

 The Ministry of Transport and Communication through the department of roads has increased its regional offices from three to seven while depots have been augmented from 10 to 23 across the country to address issues of road maintenance.

This was revealed by the Minister, Mr Thulagano Segokgo when updating the North West District Council about the status of roads and information communications infrastructure undertaken by his ministry.

He said the increase of offices was aimed to address the demand of regular maintenance of roads.

He said the North West Region based in Maun, consisted of Maun Roads depot and Sehithwa Weighbridge which were located in the Maun Administrative Authority (MAA) and Gumare Roads depot located in Okavango sub-district.

Mr Segokgo said the ministry through the department had prepared annual maintenance procurement plans which were to be funded through the Road Levy Fund for 2020/21 financial year for the maintenance of the entire roads. He, however, said this had not been achieved due to diversion of funds to the COVID-19 fight.

Mr Segokgo also appraised councillors on projects development such as Maun/Nata road noting that the government had reached a decision to implement the project using domestic resources as a matter of urgency.

The project, he said would be unbundled into three sections to accommodate citizen contractors adding that it was planned that the invitation to tender for consultants would be floated mid-October.

Currently, he said his ministry was working on the invitation to tender (ITTs) for the preparation of bidding documents, and assistance during selection of contractor and monitoring /supervision of construction and defects liability for the reconstruction of the road.

Mr Segokgo explained that initially, the project was to be funded through a loan from the Chinese government but the Botswana government was not able to reach a consensus with the government of China on the process of securing a loan as well as terms of the loan in relation to the cost of the project. 

The councillors were also informed that the construction of a bridge at Mohembo was progressing despite it being delayed. 

The project which is 80 per cent complete, commenced in November 2016 and the original completion date was October 2019.

Mr Segokgo noted that the project was anticipated to be completed by May 2021. 

On ICT infrastructure, he revealed that ICT infrastructure deployment comprising expansion and upgrades in the district was done during the National Development Plan (NDP) 10.

The deployments which were funded by his ministry, he said, were done through two key national projects being; the national backbone and local access loop which are broadband networks that operate at high speeds with enhanced quality.

The North-West district, he said was currently connected to the national network through optic fibre and mobile broadband.

Meanwhile, Mr Segokgo noted that road infrastructure development together with information and communications infrastructure development were fundamental to sustainable economic growth.

He said government recognised transport as key to economic development noting that currently, road transport contributed to more than 90 per cent of all transportation and the role played by the transport infrastructure in stimulating economic growth in the country was huge.

The transport and ICT sectors, he said directly and indirectly created employment for rural communities adding that the ministry recognised the need to develop these sectors in order for the country to achieve the Vision 2036 goals. Ends