PPP strategy for land development in the offing
Keikantse Lesemela | Wednesday February 26, 2014 14:56
Responding to the budget speech comments from the Members of Parliament this week, the Minister of Finance and Development planning, Kenneth Matambo said plans are underway to carry out high density and high value developments in certain prime areas of Gaborone. “As I indicated in paragraph 60 of the budget speech, implementation of the guidelines is expected to start during the 2014/15 financial year”, he said.
Matambo was responding to a comment by Kentse Rammidi and GaotlhaetseMatlhabaphiri who pointed that defaulting contractors, over dependence on government budget by the construction industry and the allocation of un-serviced plots are some of the challenges in the industry. They suggested that government should allocate projects on the basis of where they will make the highest impact.
Furthermore Matambo revealed that the government acknowledges that ministries lack implementation capacity. “This is why I indicated in the budget speech that on an annual basis about 20% of the development budget is not utilised. The government is concerned about this state of affairs, and encourages all ministries to build the necessary capacity for implementing projects that are budgeted for”, he said.
The issue of project implementation, coordination and monitoring across government ministries is noted. Suffice to say that the overall project monitoring and evaluation of government projects is currently the responsibility of the National Strategy Office (NSO).
He pointed out that on the basis of the identified need to have a National Monitoring and Evaluation Framework for Botswana, NSO engaged a consultant who undertook a readiness assessment of the country and the same consultant is currently working on a Technical Guide, which will help the Government to appropriate measures towards the development of a Monitoring and Evaluation Framework for Botswana.
“Further, the recent introduction of Thematic Working Groups in the budgeting and planning process provides an additional forum for monitoring and coordination of project implementation”.