26 Sep 2022

Outgoing Tawana Land Board secretary, Ms Neo Mothobi has been commended for leaving a legacy of abhorring and uprooting corruption at the land board.

Ms Mothibi, who served at  Tawana Land Board for four years has been transferred to Kweneng Land Board.

During her farewell session, North West district leaders took turns to praise her for leaving remarkable foot print and restoring the dignity of Tawana Land Board as well as for fast-tracking land allocation.

North West District Council chairman, Mr Kebareeditse Ntsogotlho commended her efforts in uprooting corruption, saying that Tawana Land Board was one of those that have had many issues of land corruption.

Land boards, he said were tasked with managing a sensitive resource; that of land and appreciated that since her arrival in 2018, Ms Mothobi made the fight against corruption a reality in a transparent environment.

He applauded her for making efforts to encourage her staff to act diligently and carefully when serving the public.

Mr Ntsogotlho also said the outgoing land board secretary accelerated efforts to ensure members of the community were allocated land in the entire district.

The last allocation was done in 2006 and since then the land board kept a waiting list which stood at over 69 000 for residential plots.

However, Mr Ntsogotlho said the organisation through Ms Mothobi’s hard work managed to engage and advise council to play its part to speed up land allocation.

He added that to date, the land board had made a significant progress in land allocation.

Council secretary, Mr Motlogelwa Thuso concurred that Ms Mothobi had left a legacy in the district, which needed to be continued as far as land allocation was concerned.

He noted that Ms Mothobi worked closely with council to speed up land allocation.

He said  efforts were made to reduce red tapes and land was easily availed to facilitate developments for the benefit of the community.

“Through her efforts, Tawana Land board has indeed indicated that public service is a machinery through which government delivers service.

I applaud Ms Mothobi for restoring the dignity of the organisation as she has even gone an extra mile to take land board to the royal house recognising their role as the land custodians,” he added.

Mr Thuso said the outgoing secretary had established a good working relationship with all stakeholders citing that she constantly consulted on any development made at land board.

Land board chairman, Mr Emmanuel Dube also said Ms Mothobi had done well in transforming the organisation.

The land board, he said, was marred with a lot of challenges but Ms Mothobi worked hard to find solutions and she had made remarkable efforts to translate the organisation’s integrity, teamwork, transparency, accountability, creating an ethical work culture and enhanced service delivery.

“Ms Mothobi is a perfectionist and result-oriented leader and she pushed her staff to do their best when given assignments hence we managed to fast-track land allocation for our communities,” he said.

Mr Dube said Tawana Land Board was amongst the best performing land boards in terms of land allocation and gave credit to Ms Mothobi, noting that other land boards had been urged to bench mark from them.

Her transfer, he said was a big blow as they had expected more from her.

He expressed hope that her successor would do the same and take the organisation to greater heights.

For her part, Ms Mothobi thanked district leadership and her staff for cooperation and teamwork.

She said she managed to excel because of their support.

She also gave that credit to the council physical planners who worked tirelessly to start necessary processes to pave way for allocation.

The physical planners, she said developed the layouts and submitted to land board hence they managed to increase pace in land allocation.

Meanwhile, the land board has set a target to allocate 17 918 residential plots by the end of financial year 2022/23 against the national target of 100 000 plots.

The latest statistics indicate that waiting list for residential plots is 75 749 which comprising of 49 610 in Maun, 8 950 in Sehithwa, 720 in Nokaneng, 6 103 in Gumare, 7 440 in Shakawe and 2 926 in Seronga. ENDS