11 Mar 2021

 Government has come up with interventions to ensure accessibility of water across the country, the Minister of Land Management, Water and Sanitation Services, Mr Kefentse Mzwinila has said.

Mr Mzwinila said this while presenting his ministry’s P4.3 billion budget proposals for the 2021-22 financial year, which included P3.4 billion for the development fund and roughly P964 million for recurrent expenditure.

He said since containing the COVID-19 pandemic required a reliable water supply, his ministry had to mitigate the water scarcity challenge through some temporary interventions.

Mr Mzwinila said they had undertaken extensive provision of water bowsers throughout the country, in particular to areas with pervasive water shortages and an additional 41 ungazetted settlements as well as reconnecting owing customers to water supply and suspending disconnections countrywide.

He also said his ministry was working on developing a long term national water security strategy to meet future water demands and improve resilience to climate change impacts.

“My ministry continues to implement major water supply projects, such as the North-South Water Carrier 2.2, which involves the construction of a water transmission pipeline from Palapye to Mmamashia, for the supply of the Mahalapye cluster villages, greater Gaborone including Tlokweng, Mochudi, Ramotswa, Mogoditshane, Gakuto and Kopong, plus Lobatse, Barolong sub-district, Kanye, Thamaga, Moshupa, Molepolole and associated localities,” Mr Mzwinila said.

He further said the Masama-Mmamashia 100km pipeline commenced in May 2020, was 85 per cent complete and upon completion was projected to inject an additional 64 million litres per day into the greater Gaborone area as well as villages in and around Lobatse, Kanye and Barolong areas.

Mr Mzwinila said they had been working on speedily availing land for productive processes, but experienced the challenge of some allocated land remaining fallow. 

He also said the ministry continued to implement full, bulk or minimal land servicing across the country.

Further, Mr Mzwinila said his ministry was implementing a land management reform agenda which would prioritise facilitating timely access to land, public private partnerships in land servicing, analyse the extent of undeveloped plots as well as how to best develop undeveloped land.

He also disclosed that the ministry would work on reaffirming the country’s national boundaries along with neighbouring states. ends