29 Nov 2022

Botswana Police Service in the northern division on Saturday gave Ms Barulaganyi Mbuta and her family a place to call home worth over P150 000.

Handing over the house to the 43-year-old mother of eight in Sepako village, Divisional Commander for North Senior Assistant Commissioner, Ms Cynthia Setilo said that the house would provide a conducive environment for Ms Mbuta to raise her eight children.

“Parents need proper shelter to raise children,” she said adding that lack of habitable housing always has a negative bearing on the upbringing of children.

To this end, a team of police investigators that followed up on the case of a missing child at the home of Mbuta got touched by the sorry state of the family’s shelter and decided to do something about it immediately.

“Over and above executing our duty as police officers, we were forced to provide shelter for the family,” she said adding that as a police service they had the corporate social responsibility to help build the society.

 The house was the 76th to be built and handed over to the less privileged by the Botswana Police Service.

She thus commended men and women in uniform for their hard work and the spirit of benevolence.

Superintendent Gaolathe Ngayaya of Francistown Police said the project started in 2015. At the time, the beneficiary (Mbuta) was 36 years and had no habitable place to stay with her eight children.

“We initially came here to investigate the case of a missing seven-year-old child but were moved by the dire conditions under which they dwelt and mooted the idea to do something about the semi-finished structure they stayed in,” she said.

The police, she relayed, had before acquiring a plot for Ms Mbuta and the family, also taken over the responsibility to buy foodstuffs for the family for six straight months to relieve them from starvation.“A plot was acquired in the village with the help of social workers and funds were immediately raised for its acquisition to build this two-bedroomed house, fully furnished and installed with water and electricity,” she said in her short briefing about the project.

Appreciating the gesture, Ms Mbuta said she and her family would forever be grateful for what the Botswana police service had done. ENDS