19 Mar 2024

Disana residents who were relocated to give way for the construction of Maun International Airport, have not been all compensated.

Minister of Transport and Public Works, Mr Eric Molale informed Parliament that the ministry was doing everything in its power to complete the exercise.

Mr  Molale cited challenges such as residents without bank accounts, obsolete bank accounts that led to money being reversed and also non attendance of consultation meetings.

He however, said the ministry was making progress in the exercise as they had conducted several meetings at Disana kgotla, to solicit information that would aid in processing compensations.

The minister informed the house that the latest meetings were held from November 19-22, 2023 and January 14-19, 2024. Mr Molale said 110 out of 1 391 residents were still unpaid but the ministry’s plan was to complete the compensation process by the end of 2023/24financial year.

Meanwhile, he noted with concern that the plan might not be successful as some of the affected residents did not reside in Maun and it was difficult for them to attend scheduled kgotla meetings for submissions of the required documents to complete compensation processes.

On other issues, he noted that, there were 91 residents who were alleged to have been overpaid and a task team was assigned to assess the matter. He however, said he might request for write offs in accordance with existing procedures and processes. In addition, Mr Molale said 203 names of beneficiaries had been submitted to the guardian office at the High court for processing and currently there were no beneficiaries that were being paid through trusts.

Moreover, he informed the house that, his ministry would continue to address queries raised by unsatisfied beneficiaries using two method of data collection, being queries routed through office of the District Commissioner as well as during kgotla meetings addressed by the ministry officials.

Maun East legislator, Mr Goretetse Kekgonegile, had asked the minister to brief the house on the progress of compensating all individuals relocated to give way for Main International Airport.

He also asked about the number of unpaid beneficiaries, target date for paying remaining beneficiaries, the number of beneficiaries to be paid through court trust processes and also the number of beneficiaries whose payments had been sent to High Court.

Mr Kekgonegile further asked how the ministry intended to address queries raised by unsatisfied beneficiaries and why the ministry was not collecting queries directly from Disana or affected community. ENDS