New Palapye malls trigger misgivings
Lindiwe Mozola | Thursday June 15, 2017 15:58
Anywhere else, the construction of a new mall would be met with ululation by the local community, and indeed some residents here are excited at the employment prospects. However, having experienced a boom in construction in recent years, residents of Palapye know better than most the dark side of rapid development.
Palapye is rapidly being propelled from a village to a town and the four malls, to be located along the A1 highway, are expected to give the area an urban facelift and dust off its village origins. Resident businesses of various sizes are wary about the new malls, which they fear will swallow their enterprises.
Malebogo Keletibetse (31) a street vendor located at Choppies Complex, told Mmegi that she is already struggling with her small business as many other street vendors are selling similar products in the same area. She expects the new malls to redirect traffic away from her place of business, lowering her already battling revenues.
“The situation is going to be worse as more vendors will come on board and customers will sideline us in favour of vendors placed in the new malls,” she said. “We cannot just relocate our businesses to the new sites without the council’s authority.
“Moreover customers will prefer shopping in the big malls as they have distinctive features and a variety of goods compared to us.” Keletibetse also expects crime to increase as more people migrate to Palapye in search of greener pastures.
“Among those flooding into Palapye will be would-be thieves who are going to terrorise villagers and disturb the peace and tranquillity that has been prevailing in the village,” she said. Reuben Moreetsi, a taxi driver, expects crime to shoot up as Palapye is in the epicentre of the region and will attract many for the economic opportunities, especially in the wake of the BCL Mine’s closure.
Moreetsi said while the malls are a good development, the road network in the village leaves a lot to be desired and could lessen the benefits from having the new developments.
“It will be useless to have all these malls, while there are no roads in Palapye. I mean it is embarrassing to be proud of all these malls while there is only one main road in a village that is growing at this rate.
Unless this issue is addressed we can forget about our village becoming a town as is always being preached by leaders here,” added Moreetsi.
Gaongalelwe Sebolao, another taxi driver, said the malls would not create sustainable jobs and therefore there was nothing to celebrate.
“To date we still have unanswered questions about the collapsed glass factory which had given us hope for sustainable jobs, so how are we supposed to be happy for the malls which will profit only the owners while employees are paid peanuts,” he said.
Not everyone is sceptical however. Bofelo Chaa (22) an employee at Jet Stores said he was very excited about the malls because Palapye has not changed since he was born in the village.
He said it would be exciting to see modern conveniences which residents will have access to and not have to go and shop in Francistown or Gaborone.