11 Jan 2023

Member of Parliament for Mogoditshane, Mr Tumiso Rakgare has told residents that Transitional National Development Plan, which commences in April this year and ends in March next year, will accelerate implementation of new and old projects, not only in the constituency but countrywide.

Addressing a kgotla meeting on January 9, Mr Rakgare told residents that projects geared up for their constituency included the construction of the 27-kilometre Mogoditshane-Gabane-Mmankgodi Road, which he said would commence during the transitional plan.

He said the road, which would cost over P1.7 billion, would be constructed into a two-way street to help reduce traffic, particularly during peak hours.

He added that other development projects to be undertaken under the transitional plan included construction of a community health centre, which is expected to decongest Nkoyaphiri and Lesirane clinics, which continually received a high number of patients even from outside Mogoditshane.

On one hand, he said Mogoditshane would also have a police post constructed to help fight the escalating criminal activities in the village and its surroundings.

On the sale of plots, Mr Rakgare, shared the residents’ concerns about some residents who sold residential plots upon allocation.

“Government is really trying to ensure that every Motswana has a place to stay so those involved in such acts must desist from them,” Mr Rakgare said.

On issues raised by residents, the MP assured them that he would engage relevant authorities so that they addressed them and ensure that they assisted residents according to service delivery standards.

Earlier, some Mogoditshane residents had expressed concern about issues, which included, among others, poor service delivery, delays in allocation of residential plots by the landboard. They also alleged corrupt practices by some land officers.

One resident, Ms Mmusi Galedumele told the area MP that landboard officers would ask residents to call their offices beyond the normal working hours, saying ‘they will tell us to call the office at 5pm but we all know that by that time government offices would have closed. This is a concern to us.’

Another resident, Mr Nyaladzi Moilwa expressed concern about the way the landboard allocated plots, saying ‘they allocate land to us in a uniformed way because some plots are not allocated rightfully as they are too close to one another which causes crowding.’

Mr Moilwa therefore urged landboard officers to improve their allocation process.

For his part Mr Tsholofelo Tsira, the landboard officials needed to improve on the time they took to address residents’ complaints.

“Landboard officials drag their feet when it comes to assisting residents on land allocations issues; for example two residents were allocated land next to one another, only to realise that there was a fault on a water pipe which Water Utilities Corporation checked and gave a report. Unfortunately it has been two years since the issues has been reported to the landboard but has not attended to it. I am pleading to you MP today to please address the landboard officials to try and attend to our issues well on time,” Mr Tsira said.

Another resident, a temporary teacher in one of the schools in Mogoditshane, Mr Kolobetsi Tshiamo, expressed concern about the delay in feedback from government officials regarding their applications for permanent employment.

“We are constantly told that our applications have been processed but we have not been given the letters because of the system we are told is not working or some other technical problems,” said Mr Tshiamo.

Conversely, one Gosego Kemotshepha thanked the MP for addressing residents, saying ‘a lot of issues have been raised by other residents. I am here to appreciate your presence MP for coming here to listen to our concerns and helping us solve them as much as you can.’

For her part, the Umbrella Village Development Committee (VDC) chairperson, Ms Elder Masimola, told the meeting that work had started to fix the Mogoditshane Hall, which had been in bad state and would be completed soon.

In other issues, Ms Masimola said they were happy that they had managed to fix other office buildings within the kgotla. Ends