11 May 2022

Kazungula residents have been informed that their district will be connected to the North West Transmission Grid’s second phase which is scheduled to kick off this financial year.

Addressing a kgotla meeting in the village on Monday, Chobe MP Mr Machana Shamukuni said the P4.6 billion grid will extend the country’s high voltage to the North West, Ghanzi and Chobe and address dependency on cross-border power.

He said the second phase would involve construction of a 400kV from Dukwi to Chobe connecting the area to the national grid at Phokoje Station.

He said the just-ended Parliament sitting approved a lion’s share for the Ministry of Health in order to enable implementation of government reset priority number one which is about saving the population from COVID-19.

Mr Shamukuni said it was disappointing that people were dragging their feet to get vaccinated while some of the vaccines were reaching their expiry date.

Still, on COVID-19 vaccines, the MP informed residents that government entered into an agreement with a vaccine manufacturing company, Nant, to produce the PulaCorbex vaccine in Botswana.

He said the vaccines would be used locally while some would be exported to other countries. Mr Shamukuni noted that setting up a manufacturing company in Botswana would give locals the opportunity to get knowledge, particularly at a time when the country was moving towards a knowledge-based economy.

Village Development Committee deputy chairperson, Mr Sangwana Sangwana noted that the construction of the Chobe district hospital should be fast-tracked as the population had increased adding that the new hospital would also relieve the burden from the Kazungula Health Post.

Mr Sangwana said the youth were challenged with delay in the process of the Youth Development Fund (YDF) and its application forms which they said were complicated.

During comments and questions, one resident Mr Bapadile Molatlhegi observed that the Kazungula Bridge does not benefit the local community but had instead become a disadvantage. 

He explained that before the bridge it was easy for locals to go to Zambia to buy goods that were not available in Botswana for resale and personal use but since introduction of the bridge it was now expensive to visit the market across in Zambia.

MYSC coordinator, Mr Phineas Kgare explained that in the last financial year a total of 61 applications were made and only 13 projects were funded. He further explained that since closing date for applications was in August, it took the office only two months to approve the applications adding that in his view there was no delay. Ends