04 Sep 2023

Following consultations with members of communities in Tsabong District recently, District Development Committee on Friday submitted key development projects to be considered for implementation under National Development Plan 12.

Addressing Tsabong District Council special full council recently, council principal physical planner Ms Masego Banda said key issues for District Development Plan 9 (DDP9) had been captured cluster by cluster in Tsabong.

Under sustainable economic development, she said poverty remained the main challenge with an estimated 36.7 per cent of people living below the poverty datum line nationwide, adding that most of them resided in the western region of the country within which Tsabong District falls.

Further, she said the district had narrow economic base, high unemployment rate where communities relied heavily on pastoral farming.

She said for the district to realise economic diversification more effort needed to be put towards addressing such key issues.

She said it was imperative to drive export led economy underpinned by inclusive, sustainable and diversified growth driven by high levels of productivity.

She highlighted that Tsabong had limited banking facilities and was currently getting services from only from ABSA.

This, she said rendered the district unattractive to investors and tourists, adding that there was limited circulation of money within the district as well as limited access to finance.

She said a mitigating strategy was to avail serviced land at subsidised prices and introduce tax rebates incentives to grow the banking sector.

She stated that the district was faced with a challenge of farmers receiving low prices for their farm produce and livestock . A mitigating strategy was a proposal to establish a market center to assist farmers.

Furthermore, she said it was critical to establish beneficiation and value chains to create more employment opportunities especially that construction of the Tsabong Multispecies Abattoir was nearing completion.

Moreover, she said farmers needed entrepreneurial skills to grow their economic base.

She said one of the key issues under DDP9 was low exploitation of tourism and mining potential in the area hence the need to develop a tourism strategy, conduct mineral explorations, and develop the mining sector.

Ms Banda highlighted that there was rural urban migration which must be curbed by introducing district specific programmes and facilitate district value chains development.

Tsabong district, she said had inefficient transport system which impeded development hence the need to introduce other transport modes. She said it was important to consider construction of new routes to make travel easier for people.

She said unreliable electricity supply in the district remained one of the main challenges in the district affecting quality of life as well business transactions and production.

For his part, council chairperson Mr Hendrick Jacobs said government had taken a bottom up approach to make sure that developments were inclusive, hence consultations were made with communities to come up with key issues and propose development projects for NDP 12/DDP 9.

He said government took a decision to institute some reforms in the government machinery adding that one of them was to align National Development Plan to the political term of Parliament and members of councilors.

This was to allow them to be able to come up with development projects aligned to their term in office.

Mr Jacobs said government came up with the second Transitional National Development Plan that would end on March 2025.

Thus he said, the NDP12/DDP9 would start on April 2025, adding that thorough consultations for the preparations of NDP 12/DDP 9 were ongoing.

Following consultations with communities local authorities were expected to provide feedback on the implementation of the past plans and solicit input from communities on key issues needed to guide development of the local authority key issue paper and consequently to inform the national key issue paper and national priorities. ENDS