25 Nov 2025

 Batswana across the country are concerned by high levels of poverty, unemployment, low wages, income disparities and other social challenges that face them on a day to day basis. 

This was said by Selebi Phikwe East MP, Mr Kgoberego Nkawana recently at Parliament, while contributing to the State-of-the-Nation Address (SONA) debate. 

He said over the past year since the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) was elected to government, the situation on the ground had not changed, and people in the countryside were becoming more impatient. 

Mr Nkawana said small scale subsistence farmers were used to being awarded seeds, and implements support and subsidies from government, but found themselves in limbo this ploughing season, which he said would affect micro-agriculture. 

He added that the Bonno National Housing Programme was delivering houses at a snail’s pace, whereas housing remained a challenge countrywide. Mr Nkawana said the Botswana Housing Corporation had been established by an act of Parliament, to provide shelter for the country’s citizens, and should have been the institution engaged to build large scale medium and low cost houses to ensure housing for all. 

Mr Nkawana said Selebi Phikwe was struggling economically since the closure of the BCL Mine and he urged government to work on measures to resuscitate the town’s economy. 

He said granite rock extraction was feasible in the hills around Selebi Phikwe and this could be one of the avenues to be explored. 

Also debating the SONA, Tloweng MP, Mr Phenyo Segokgo said it was important for any government or leader to present a vision and promises that they would work towards realising, and dismissed the opposition for being critical to the UDC government for their pledges to the electorate. 

Mr Segokgo said the UDC was working tirelessly to achieve their ambitious transformative ideas and if around 80 per cent could be realised, the country could be changed into a forward looking developmental state. 

He said he noticed the economic ideological convergence within the National Assembly, which was not surprising given that the official opposition Botswana Congress Party was a breakaway of the Botswana National Front, a UDC coalition contracting partner, and the BCP also spent five years in Parliament as a part of the UDC. 

As such, he said the BCP could only differ on the project implementation matrix but not on the substance of UDC policy, which he said was similar to the ideals of the BCP. 

Mr Segokgo proposed that civil servants aged 45 and above should be offered voluntary retirement packages so that they could create space for younger people to be employed in the civil service. 

He said after the SONA was delivered, he had recently held a virtual kgotla meeting with Tlokweng residents and they offered him various ideas. 

They called for a quicker turnaround time for the Botswana Meat Commission payments to pastoral farmers, and Mr Segokgo confirmed that this was being pursued in addition to the liberalisation of the domestic beef market. 

He said concerns about the shortage of medicines in Tlokweng clinics such as the Main Clinic and Mafitlhakgosi was being addressed by the Ministry of Health which was procuring increased medical supplies. 

Mr Segokgo said a new primary school would be constructed in Maratanang and he expressed the belief that Tlokweng would also get a senior secondary school over the upcoming development phase. 

He further said next year a feasibility study would be conducted for the expansion of the Zeerust Road with a dual carriageway proposed for the Maratanag-Tlokweng border-gate. 

Mr Segokgo said P400 million worth of land servicing would be conducted during NDP 12 at Ranfurwa, Maratanang and Maratadiba wards in Tlokweng. ENDS