09 Nov 2022

Government’s decision to upgrade sub-districts to full fledged districts is one of its various attempts to bring services closer to the people, local government minister Mr Kgotla Autlwetse said Tuesday, when addressing a kgotla meeting in Letlhakane. 

Mr Autlwetse said some places were just too far from the people to remain central offices. 

To drive his point home, he gave the example of Makalamabedi whose people had to travel up to five hours to get council services from Letlhakane, which lies 322km south or from Serowe, some 513km further south east. 

This also negatively impinged on the efficiency of the area councillor, who had to travel the long stretch to Serowe to attend council meetings. 

He explained that in its bid to address challenges of delayed service delivery, seven Central sub-districts had been upgraded to full fledged districts. 

These are Tonota, Mahalapye, Tutume, Serowe, Boteti, Palapye and Bobirwa. 

The minister said plans were afoot to upgrade Rakops to a sub-district to further enhance service delivery in Boteti West. 

All in all, Mr Autlwetse said, 22  sub-districts across the country had been upgraded to full fledged districts. 

Owing to financial reasons and other logistics, and barring unforeseen circumstances, implementation would start with 11 districts and coincide with the next council session in December. 

He explained that he still had to submit a request for establishment order in the next Parliament session, which would cover the number of councillors required for every district. 

Additionally, there is need to establish bye-laws for the districts. That, he said, was to ensure there were no impediments to the implementation process. 

He nonetheless pleaded with the people to be patient, should there be any delays owing to unforeseen circumstances. 

Minister Autlwetse explained that the whole process of operationalising the districts would require P63 million. 

He said to avoid drastic changes, government had decided upgrade personnel found in place. 

The upgrade to district status also meant land boards would be upgraded to district level. 

The transformation would also affect tribal administration, and require upgrading of tribal secretaries to tribal administrators. 

The minister explained that the populations of areas that had been upgraded met the legal threshold. 

For his part the area MP, Mr Sethomo Lelatisitswe hailed President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi, for his commitment to bring services closer to the people. 

Mr Lelatisitswe said upgrading Boteti to a full district meant people would no longer have to travel the long distance to, or expend a lot of money to get services in Serowe. 

He explained that the new dispensation was not meant to tamper with bogosi as some people would want to believe. Ends