17 Oct 2022

Maokane residents have appealed to Delimitation Commission to move their village from Mmathethe/Molapowabojang constituency.

Speaking during the commission’s meeting at the village kgotla recently, Kgosi Isaac Banyaditse said there was lack of developments, which he attributed to the vastness of the constituency.

“We are very far from other areas in our constituency and I believe this has led to lack of developments in our village,” he said.

Maokane Village Development Committee (VDC) vice chairperson, Ms Lesego Mabego, said there were a lot of reasons that propelled them to request to be moved from the constituency.

She said Maokane was far from Mmathethe where the constituency office was located and this was worsened by the bad state of roads which made the area MP’s visits difficult.

“It is basically near impossible for us to access services there,” she said. She said their culture and way of life differed from others in the constituency, noting that they could not even stand for elections because they were not known by residents of other villages because they were far apart.

Ms Mabego suggested that Maokane be grouped with villages surrounding them including Jwaneng to form another constituency to be called Jwaneng/Maokane.

Maokane VDC vice chairperson said if it was not possible to have Maokane/Jwaneng constituency, they should at least be moved to Jwaneng/Mabutsane. 

“These are the only two options, nothing else,” she added.

A resident, Mr Waditlhare Ditsie, explained that they were moved from one constituency to another over the years, with villages very far from them, hence lack of developments in Maokane.

“We do not want to be far from constituency office. Our member of parliament could be in Jwaneng and that would be a reasonable distance for us, this time around if not listened to, we would not vote” he said.

Mr Jost Isaac, 2022 Delimitation Commission member, informed the residents that their assessment took into consideration a number of factors such as language, culture and geographical features.

“A constituency should be made up of areas, which share the above mentioned and the area Member of Parliament should be able to traverse around the constituency, not hindered by geographical features,” he said.

He also explained that they were guided by the constitution when doing their job, noting that they were independent from any external influence. ends