09 Jan 2022

Lentswelemoriti residents say they  are prejudiced against when applying for land in Motlhabaneng.

The residents made the allegations during a kgotla meeting addressed by area MP, Mr Taolo Lucas on Thursday.

They said that land overseers and some members of the community in Motlhabaneng frustrated their efforts of acquiring plots in the village.

Lentswelemoriti is a privately owned land by St Engenas Zion Christian Church.

Like many other Batswana,  Lentswelemoriti residents require ploughing land, residential and business plots to improve their livelihoods but all these activities are prohibited in a private land they reside in.

“I applied for a residential plot in Motlhabaneng in 2005 and I’m still without a plot because there were reports of double allocation. I waited for the authorities to resolve the matter only to find at a later stage that someone else had been allocated the same plot and had developed it,” said Ms Mmamotse Dintwe.

Ms Dintwe also alleged that someone erected a structure inside her younger sister’s plot just to cause conflict and frustrate her. The sister was defeated.

One Mr Ofentse Moleofe cleared that though members of St Engenas ZCC, and staying in its private farm, the church did not bar members from seeking plots outside the private land.

Like some of his fellow residents, Mr Moleofe alleged exclusion in plot allocation in Motlhabaneng.

“I suspect that land board considers us undeserving and unworthy citizens,” said Mr Moleofe who suggested that people should lease their land instead of selling it.

He warned that despite the population increase and need for land escalating, land did not increase with demand and hence there was need for equitable distribution of the resource.

At the same event Kgosi Bethuel Machete, who presides over Lentswelemoriti, said that without land people were deprived of dignity.

“It doesn’t dignify anyone eligible plot owner to wake up from parents’ houses every day just because they can’t be allocated a plot,” Kgosi Machete said and added that without own homes children’s privacy and personal developments were compromised.

Consequently, Kgosi Machete invited all those with complaints and cases of ill-treatment to his office.

He also invited Lentswelemoriti residents to apply for plots in Motlhabaneng without fear of being prejudiced.

He revealed that there was a part of the village reserved for applicants from Lentswelemoriti.

There, he found that there were multiple undeveloped plot and urged plot owners to fast-track developments. ENDS