MLWA eradicates waiting lists
Larona Makhaiza | Thursday March 9, 2023 13:24
“To indeed show that we have done fairly well is that as the ministry we have eradicated the notion of waiting lists in some parts of the country where people can acquire their plots in a short period of time compared to the past where there were waiting lists on all areas in the country before,” he said. The said village and districts that the minister alluded to have eradicated the process of waiting lists are Gantsi, Kgalagadi, some areas of Chobe, Tawana, Kweneng and Ngwaketse. And with these places that they have eradicated waiting lists, the minister said Batswana can now only wait for up to two weeks before they get their plot allocations without being in the waiting list for years like it has been a norm. Mzwinila said this is a commendable effort by the ministry to have eradicated the waiting lists in these areas, as it has been many years that the ministry has done such a thing as people were now used to the notion of waiting for plots for quite a lifetime.
Adding more to what the ministry have achieved thus far, Mzwinila added that the ministry has thus far been able to allocate 52, 277 plots out of the 100, 000 target that have been set by President Botswana Mokgweetsi Masisi. And the minister says this is great improvement by the ministry also as in the past years they have only managed to allocate 8, 630 plots. The minister finds this really commendable as they have only managed to achieve this in a short period of time as they commenced only last year April till end of February this year. However, he feels that they could have done better as he firmly believes the ministry could have by now surpassed the 100 000 target had it not been delays with surveys. “We currently have 60, 000 plots which are being surveyed and they could have long be done by now as we could have allocated close to 110,000 plots had we had resources internally but we had had to outsource surveyors which resulted in delays, ” Mzwinila stated.
Furthermore, the minister added that they encountered some problems with the people from the private sector as one of the tenders they had already given to one of the private companies was challenged with bidders coming out and showing interest. Mzwinila revealed that the challenge caused delay in carrying out surveys of the 60, 000 thousand plots as they had to restart the whole thing hence why the delay with the plot allocation. And now the survey is underway. “We expect the survey to be completed by 5th April ,2023 by these outsourced companies on the 60 000 plots and from April 5th till May we will be carrying out plot allocations of these 60 000 plots,” the minister added. He further implored Batswana to stop putting up their plots for sale upon acquisition immediately as this causes some delays also on their side. He also pleaded with Batswana not sell their plots to non citizens as the land should be for the citizens only.