26 Nov 2013

Ministry of Infrastructure, Science and Technology is aware that designs of buildings do not take advantage of sunlight in the country.

Minister of Education and Skills and Development, Dr Pelonomi Venson- Moitoi told Parliament that the current building regulations did not provide adequate guidelines on the utilisation of sunlight/ daylight and other natural resources.

However, she said when answering a question on behalf of Minister Johnnie Swartz that designers were expected to use their skills, ingenuity and know how during the design process to utilise and take advantage of the available natural resources in their environments such as daylight and incorporate these in their designs.

Dr Venson-Moitoi said designers were also supposed to subscribe to or use standard design principles and guidelines which take into account the amount of available daylight in a given geographical location.

Unfortunately, this seemed not to be the practice locally, she said. Dr Venson- Moitoi explained that the ministry was reviewing the building regulations to address the issue of energy efficient buildings.

She said the Attorney General Chambers has already been given the instructions to review the Building Control Act to facilitate for the completion and adoption of the revised building regulations which will address a lot of issues, including green buildings.

Dr Venson- Moitoi noted that  country perhaps should change her practices because even where buildings have sufficient amount of daylight entering the building people still switch on lights.

This practice, she observed is common in public buildings where lights are always switched on the whole day during working hours even when there is sufficient day light to provide lighting.

Therefore, she said there was need to educate the public on efficient energy use and encourage people to use natural resources around them rather than relying on artificial ones even when people could do without them.

MP for South East South, Mr Odirile Motlhale had asked if the minister is aware that building designs do not take advantage of the amount of sunlight in Botswana thereby forcing people to use electricity for lighting up their houses during the day.

He also wanted to know what the ministry is doing to encourage the utilization of this natural resource to ease the burden on electricity. ENDS