Kuchwe changes teams after 30 years,
Patricia Edwin | Friday August 8, 2014 12:39
An announcement by personnel who were counting the votes in the BDP’s Tati East primaries last year, convinced the 57-year-old farmer and entrepreneur to leave the democrats and seek a new home.
Kuchwe found out he had lost to Samson Moyo Guma in an election the now UDC man says was fraught with irregularities and “cheating”.
Prior to that moment, Kuchwe was a steadfast member, with his loyalty being rewarded when he was appointed a Specially Nominated Councillor in 2009.
“I complained to the BDP leadership and they never listened to me,” he recalls.
“They never listened to me because I was not a Khama person. I never stood a chance,” he said.
Kuchwe said after that bitter loss, he found that the UDC policies resonated with his own ideas and outlook.
Having weighed his chances, Kuchwe believes he holds the upper hand against his former allies in the BDP. He says: “I have been honest with voters and never lied to them in my campaign.
“I have found a home with the UDC because the party’s policies resonate very well with what I believe, especially on the land issue, which is a big problem in the North East District and Tati East constituency,” he says.
Land is a particularly emotional issue for the farmer from Kuchwe, who believes Batswana have long been short-changed.
“The government is taking people’s arable lands and leaving them with nowhere to plough, while there are ranches that government should be buying,” he says.
“What is the point of taking people’s land and not buying ranches? Taking land from a Motswana is to render that person destitute, especially when the government has the option of buying land.”
He further said government programmes such as the Arable Lands Development Programme, Young Farmers Fund, Livestock Management and Infrastructure Development, poverty eradication and others were doomed to fail since the youth doesn’t have access to land.
“There is no land in Tati East and this has really become a crisis for us,” he says.
“Look at Tachila Nature Reserve. That area could have been used to improve land issues in this constituency, but the government found it better to give it to animals.
“They prefer animals to human beings.”
Echoing the views of other opposition politicians and independents, Kuchwe is still unhappy about the way government handled the Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) outbreak in the North East District.
“The second FMD outbreak started in Mmadinare and Bobonong and only a few of their cattle were killed. For compensation they were given P2,500 per beast, but here all our cattle were killed and farmers were compensated with only P1,700.
“However, when you want to buy cattle now, they go for P2,500. As soon as I get into Parliament I will advocate for people to be given their P800 balances so that they can restock,” says Kuchwe.
The Tati East hopeful is also unimpressed with the sale of the affected cattle to Zimbabwe, saying citizens’ cattle were “taken under false pretences”.
He claimed: “When cattle were sent to Zimbabwe we were told that they were going to be slaughtered for consumption. What we want to know is, if Zimbabweans can eat the cattle, why can’t Batswana do the same?
“We now hear that those cattle are being reared there and not being eaten.”
Kuchwe added that should he be elected to Parliament, he would advocate for the decentralisation of local authorities and the transfer of more powers to council chairmen.
“Councils have to be able to make decisions without the council chairman having to wait for the minister to come and do that. The council chairman has to have powers even to hire and fire,’ he said.
He also intends to advocate for Tati Siding to be made a sub-district as “the situation now is unfair to the residents”. According to Kuchwe, people from Patayamatebele have to travel to Masunga at a cost of P100 to pay a P10 licence, which underlines the need for a sub-district demarcation.
The 57-year-old plans to tackle what he terms infrastructural deficiencies in the constituency once elected to the August House.
“There is nothing in Tati East as far as developments are concerned,” he laments.
“We have no hospital and no senior secondary school in the whole constituency.”
Kuchwe was born in Tutume in 1957, completing his formative schooling in the village as well as in Francistown. He was in Lotsane Senior Secondary School’s first intake.
After finishing school, he worked at National Development Bank who sent him for an accounting course in Swaziland.
On his return, he briefly worked for Tswelelo, a credit bureau, after which he became self-employed that included construction and later running a lodge.
However, the interest he had felt in politics from childhood always simmered below the surface.
“When I was Lotsane in Form Four, I was already interested in politics. I was a supporter of the BDP and I attended congresses,” he recalls.
Kuchwe hopes to begin a new era with the UDC in Parliament after the elections.