Spotlight On Landless Tati Siding

Dan Mosekaphofu
Correspondent | Tuesday July 3, 2007 00:00

The village boasts a very good tarred internal roads. It is also well planned with residential areas and a separate industrial site that already has various industries and companies settling there.

It also has serviced plots that have, fortunately or unfortunately, led to the influx of people from various parts of the country that have found a 'new home' in this area.
After hours, one notices a long train of traffic arriving in the village. These are mostly cars belonging to residents of this area who work in Francistown.

 
Most of them have found it economic to commute and drive each and every morning to Francistown instead of being battered by the high accommodation rentals in the city.
This is Tati Siding village. It is fifteen minutes' drive from Francistown. It is one of the villages that have seen rapid expansion and development in recent times. Once only a train stopover before one arrived in or left Francistown, Tati Siding is steadily evolving into a fully-fledged urban centre.

It is one village that may be viewed as a true example of rural development in an era when that has become a priority and a necessity. 
It is a village that can and will surely give Francistown competition in attracting both local and foreign direct investment.
It is this fast tracked development of this village that continues to bring mixed feelings amongst its residents.

For some residents, these developments are good and it's something to cheer and celebrate. For others, however, this development has brought misery and it is to be cursed and condemned.
For 23-year-old Goitsemodimo Molwantwa, ' Tati Siding is more of a town. We have good roads and reliable water supply and electricity. All these are enough to attract investors into this village,' she says boastfully.

She also discloses that the area has fully serviced plots. 'We hope to see many companies and industries settling in this village in the not too distant future,' she says optimistically.

Her sentiments are echoed by the 27-year-old Botumelo Nkagapeng, also of Tati Siding.
'We look forward to the establishment of industries here. The environment is conducive for investment. There is also reliable transport between this place and other areas. The Francistown - Gaborone high way is just a few metres away from the middle of the village,' she declares confidently before adding that, 'We also have the railway line just besides the Francistown - Gaborone high way. What more would an investor want!'
The only thing that has the potential to scare potential investors away would be the high wave of crime that has lately plagued the otherwise peaceful village.

'This relatively high crime rate is the direct result of the influx of the illegal immigrants who have flocked to this place in search of greener pastures. Theses are mostly Zimbabweans and they are giving us a torrid time,' Molwantwa laments.
Monageng agrees with her.

'They are really troubling us. We, however, find solace in the fact that the law enforcers are doing their best to grapple with the situation through their continuous patrols,' she discloses.
Behind the excitement and celebration of some residents about the milestones that their village has achieved in so far as its developmental path is concerned, some residents are bitter about these latest developments.

'What is development if it destabilises one's livelihood and well being? If it does that it may well be termed as another form of underdevelopment and not development,' these are the convictions of the 68- year- old Boy Lehende.
He goes on to reveal that, 'we have no ploughing fields to grow our crops. The government has bought all the fields and converted them in to residential plots. As a subsistence farmer I am suffering. I have been impoverished by these so-called developments. I used to grow crops for survival but without land that is practically impossible,' he complains bitterly.

Lehende continues to disclose that: 'Development must be aimed at developing, reinforcing and consolidating the values and way of life of the people and not to completely relegate their ways of life to the archives. What is left for me is just to narrate stories of what a good farmer I used to be.

'I wanted those developments to help me to be a better farmer and not to rob me of my livelihood. I don't want the imposed new way of life but I simply want land to continue farming and that is all,' were his parting words as he frantically searched his bag to proudly show me his O'Mang card for me to get the spelling of his names correctly.
The 48-year-old Ndolo Moyo echoes Lehende's sentiments. 'We have no ploughing fields. We have been turned into beggars because we can't grow crops for ourselves. This is why we have resorted to the selling of Chibuku. What we get from this business is however not enough to sustain me and my family,' she laments as she points at a box of Chibuku lying on the ground.

Moyo also complains that, 'we also cannot secure even residential plots. Our children are landless in their land. People have invaded this village and they got themselves a number of plots'.The 47-year-old Mmameshack Mofaya also says that it is important for people to have ploughing fields.

 
'Cultivation of land has always been our way of life. It is part and parcel of our livelihood and as such people cannot survive without land for growing crops,' she says.
She also expresses some misgivings about the situation in which some people have resorted to acquiring many plots leading to shortage of residential plots. 'It is frustrating that some people prefer to own many plots despite the fact that other people don't have even one,' she says.