20 Mar 2022

Government is committed to addressing challenges besieging infrastructure development in the country.

Minister of Infrastructure and Housing Development, Mr Eric Molale assured Members of Parliament of government’s commitment in his presentation of the ministry’s budget estimates for the 2022/2023 financial year recently that a number of discussions and interventions were ongoing to initiate changes.

The discussions, he said, entailed revamping methods and processes through which project implementation would be improved.

He said the ministry was also pursuing critical initiatives in order to respond to challenges with a view to improving project implementation, including improvement of project management techniques both in the public and the private sector.

He also indicated that Review of the Facilities Management Strategy was one of the initiatives adopted with a view to strengthening district depots to guide cross-sectoral and differentiated levels as well as magnitudes of both construction and maintenance projects at district and village level.

“I must hasten to state that maintenance of facilities has not been satisfactory.

We must refrain from building new infrastructure leaving old, but sound infrastructure uncared for,” he said.

He said a sizeable proportion of the budget must be set aside for routine and cyclical maintenance.

Further, Mr Molale said strengthening citizen participation in the economy through creation of a funding mechanism to facilitate citizen contractors to be assisted with advance payment guarantees or guarantees for performance bonds or guarantees on direct payments to suppliers, which was previously done during the Accelerated Land Servicing Programme, was one of the initiatives that could be looked into.

He said once evaluated, such initiatives would be taken through the government approval process for them to take effect immediately.

“All these envisaged improvements will go a long way in better managing government’s infrastructure development and maintenance programmes,” he said.

On housing delivery, Mr Molale said the ministry would continue to address housing shortage in the country through various initiatives such as social housing programmes, which included Self Help Housing Agency (SHHA) Turnkey and low-income housing.
He said implementation of the low-income housing programmes had been delayed mainly due to shortage of land, especially in urban areas, adding that the ministry was, however, considering development of high density affordable housing units in urban areas to enable SHHA beneficiaries to purchase housing units through the turnkey scheme.
He said out of a total of 2 822 units funded since the beginning of NDP 11 under the SHHA Turnkey programme, 2 664 units had been handed over to deserving beneficiaries.
On Public Officers Housing Scheme for D4 scale and below, he said the ministry had since delivered 711 units since the year 2016/17 when the initiative commenced.
Mr Molale further explained that the ministry, through Botswana Housing Corporation, continued to look for ways to increase the housing stock, anticipating that 312 units, which included 120 for the youth, would commence at Block 7 in Gaborone in the next financial year.

In addition, he said plans were underway to construct an additional 446 units in Gaborone, Nata, Tsabong, Francistown, Kazungula and Letlhakane in the next financial year.

As part of the Youth Empowerment Programme, he said the ministry continued to engage youth-owned construction companies with a total of five companies having been awarded maintenance projects at over P20m, which in turn created 795 jobs.

He said the private sector had also been able to engage five youth-owned companies for over P29m, creating a total of 820 jobs.

Meanwhile, Minister Molale requested Parliament to approve over P490m and P130m to cover the ministry’s recurrent and development budget respectively in the 2022/2023 financial year.

Under the development budget, he funds will be used for computerisation projects, refurbishment of some government buildings and promoting home ownership through the SHAA scheme.

He said 50 per cent of the development budget, translating to over P65m would be used for the refurbishment of government buildings while 46 per cent or P60m was for Social and

Affordable Housing Programmes while the remaining four per cent would be allocated to the ministry’s computerisation project.

Under the recurrent budget, he said the largest share of over P215m would be allocated to the Department of Facilities Management, the largest department in the ministry with 31 district offices, for personnel emoluments and other charges.

The remaining balance of the recurrent budget allocations, he said, would be shared among the five remaining departments within the ministry. ENDS