12 Nov 2025

The Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Mr Noah Salakae has informed Parliament that not all residents who were relocated to give way to Maun International Airport have been compensated.

Minister Salakae said on Tuesday during Parliament session, that the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure and the Administration of Justice were making progress in the exercise.

He stated that several meetings had been held at Disana kgotla with the residents, to get their information so as to process their compensations. The Administration of Justice, he said, has also held consultation meetings with those that were paid through the Guardian Fund office.

Mr Salakae said 1,391 residents were cleared to be compensated and an additional 91 other residents said to have been over paid, making a total of 1,482 residents.

He indicated that the 91 were re-assessed by the task team to establish if indeed they were overpaid, noting that only seven were ruled out resulting in total of 1,475 to be compensated. Out of the 1,475 residents, a total of 1,307 had been compensated with 168 yet to be compensated.

The exercise, he said, took long because of the magnitude of work involved of having to look for old records between the department of lands in Francistown and Tawana Land Board.

Minister Salakae said payment had been slow because some of the residents did not reside in Maun and it was difficult to contact them to complete the process of compensation.

He indicated that another factor was that there was shortage of funds to continue the compensation and the administration of justice had difficulties in concluding some consultations as beneficiaries did not attend consultation meetings.

To mitigate some of the challenges that were being experienced, he said the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure would be preparing a Project of Memorandum to request for additional funds to cover the remaining residents, noting that the Administration of Justice would speed up the process of consultation.

The residents he said were also requested to avail themselves when called for consultation meetings. Remaining residents would be paid as soon as the funds were available in the first quarter of the 2026/27 financial year.

Minister Salakae was responding to a question asked by the Member of Parliament for Maun East, Mr Goretetse Kekgonegile who had asked for an update on the progress made in compensating individuals relocated to give way to Maun International Airport expansion.

Mr Kekgonegile also wanted the minister to give an update particularly on the total number of individuals compensated and those not compensated as much as reasons for none payment, mitigating factors, payment plans and actual payment date on pending payments. ENDS