New bus rank for Ftown
Chakalisa Dube | Monday April 10, 2023 06:00
This was confirmed by City Mayor, Godisang Radisigo when addressing the just ended ordinary full council meeting.
He said the COF is currently in negotiations with Tati Company Limited to acquire land for the planned alternative regional bus and taxi rank (to decongest the existing bus and taxi rank).
In an interview with Mmegi this week, Radisigo said consultations with Tati Company started in May 2021. “Decongesting the bus rank is also in alignment with the plan for the city to be a transport and logistics hub as part of the special economic zone initiative,” he said. Francistown is amongst the nine areas that were recognised as special economic zones owing to their relatively collapsing economies.
Identifying them as such was meant to increase trade, create employment, increase investment and effective administration. Under the special economic zones, Francistown is earmarked for a mining and modern logistics hub serving the rest of Africa. The mayor further explained that one of the proposals on the table is that Tati Company should consider freely giving the council one of its plots, which is situated near Botswana Meat Commission (BMC) for the construction of the alternative bus rank. “We might also explore a public private partnership for the development of the said plot. Everything will depend on the negotiations. We can also consider developing the plot through a public, private partnership (PPP) model,” said the mayor. Tati Company owns huge acres of land in the North East District and in Francistown.
The company has in the past sold land to government for the latter to execute various activities. “Whilst negotiations are ongoing regarding the model of partnership, with Tati Company a project memorandum requesting for an amount of P1.5 million has been submitted to the ministry to secure funds for the design of the proposed bus rank,” he said. The date and modalities for the planned bus rank will depend on the outcomes of the talks with Tati Company, according to the mayor. Rasigo illustrated that the current bus rank is congested and does not have room for expansion which is why the council found it prudent to explore building a new one.
“The rationale behind the expansion is to make transport services more convenient and reliable for the thousands of people in the city. We want to convert the current rank into a taxi rank while the newly constructed one (if at all it will be constructed) will be used by buses. We hope that everything will go according to plan,” added the mayor. For over a decade there have been concerns that the Francistown bus rank is congested and must therefore be extended. There are also those who believe that the bus rank is old and requires a facelift to bring it to a level of a capital city. The bus rank was last renovated nearly 20years ago.