10 Sep 2019

Tati West prospective parliamentary candidates have vowed to improve the road infrastructure in the North East district.The contest for the parliamentary seat would be between Mr Biggie Butale of Botswana Patriotic Front (BPF) , Mr Simon Moabi of Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) and Mr Tshepo Makhani of the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC).

During a Radio Botswana debate in Masunga on September 8, Mr Moabi said he believed in consultation above everything hence he would engage with Dikgosi, public servants and churches to propel the district to greater heights.

He stated that North East district was blessed with educated people, however noting that it was disheartening that majority of them were unemployed.

For this reason, he said, he would work closely with farming clusters citing as an example, the Masunga cluster, stating that they would focus on installing irrigation schemes to enable people to farm at a larger scale and even venture into horticulture.

Mr Moabi said Masunga was a big village that needed a second primary school to reduce the teachers’ workload of teaching many learners. He promised that if elected to Parliament, he would ensure the recommencement of the Tshesebe/ Masunga road project which was terminated due to non-compliance by the contractor.

He promised to work closely with contractors undertaking projects in his constituency to ensure that they deliver. Mr Moabi indicated that Tati West was blessed with the biggest dam in the country; Ntimbale and it was therefore important that villages in the eastern part were able to access the water.

On his part, Mr Butale said the for Tshesebe/ Masunga road to have been awarded in the first place, it was him who advocated for it while he was the MP for Tati West.

He however noted that it was unfortunate that the contractor failed the Tati West people. Mr Butale said that while he was the area MP, he facilitated the building of Masunga community library by connecting them to an investor who is spending millions on the project.

The former MP stated that Masunga cluster farming project was successful because of his contribution by ensuring that the government and Masunga residents work together to debush the 800 hectares of land.

He pleaded with Tati West people to give him another chance to finish what he started by re-electing him into office so that he could build the promised computer labs in all the schools in the 27 villages in the constituency.

Mr Butale said he cycled from Masunga to Gaborone to raise funds for the computer labs, adding that he also held motivational talks at Masunga Senior Secondary School, which motivated the learners and teachers to perform outstandingly. Meanwhile, the UDC parliamentary candidate hopeful, Mr Makhani said his focus would be on employment creation as per their party manifesto.

He said there were many educated young people roaming the streets unemployed and under UDC government, pensions would be increased.

Mr Makhani said it was important for old age pension to be increased to P1 500 because some of the pensioners were taking care of their grandchildren who were left by their biological parents through death.
Under the UDC government, he said, they would cushion Batswana from inflation by giving them a P3 000 living wage as they had realized that Batswana were being exploited for cheap labour.

He reiterated that shortage of land in Tati West was worrying, noting that too much of the land was privately owned yet North East people were without land. Mr Makhanisaid it was disheartening that Moroka, Jackalas 1 and Ramokgwebana villages were experiencing water shortage yet Ntimbale dam was in the district.

He added that he believed in the decentralization of services to give councils power to plan and execute projects at district level. ENDS