26 Sep 2022

KUnyielding efforts are underway to push government to upgrade Platjan border post into commercial border, Member of Parliament for Bobonong constituency says.

Speaking during a kgotla meeting in Tsetsebjwe Thursday, Mr Taolo Lucas said that he will continue advocating for upgrading Platjan border so that businesses on the Bobirwa side could benefit from the development.

Although he said that Minister of Finance, Ms Peggy Serame has said that there ought to be engagement between both Botswana and South Africa for the proposed commercialisation talks to begin, Mr Lucas said that time was ripe for the development to effect.

He said that the minister had responded to his proposal saying that South Africa should also be willing to commercialise on their side.

Mr Lucas said that his constituents and businesses on the Bobirwa and northern side of Botswana needed Platjan border post as a quicker route into and out of South Africa rather than going as far as Martin’s Drift border.

Bobonong legislator argued that out of the four border posts lying in his constituency Platjan Border post was better suited since it had state of the art bridge across Limpopo river.

Also, tender of the road leading to the border post and the bridge was at adjudication stage, paving way for ease of movement. The road project is funded by European Union at over P400 million.

It was against this backdrop that MP Lucas argued that infrastructure of this magnitude should be utilised at a larger scale.

 Other two border posts along the Botswana and South Africa border are Pont Drift and Zanzibar. Mabolwe border post is between Botswana and Zimbabwe.

Currently, none of the four borders is commercial.

On other developmental issues, Mr Lucas said that he had observed that constituency community projects (CCP) were not adequately explained to people such that they did not know the magnitude of the projects to include under CCP.

In some instances, he said, some wards got P350 000 which could not fund big projects as tarring roads.

The Bobonong MP also said that companies doing businesses for and with government charged exorbitant prices which subsequently affected delivery of CCP projects. BOPA