08 Apr 2014

It may well have rained the night before but the heat from the morning sun is contrarily unrelenting as I make my way to Makgopeetsane ward on the eastern end of Molepolole.

Although the mission is to find the ward kgosi and other members of the ward leadership, there is no prior appointment, but that is not going to stop me from finding them.

And as I reach the place, the first person I encounter is a lady busy sweeping the compound.

After the usual pleasantries, the lady points to an elderly man approaching from the far side of the yard saying; “that’s him,” and asks me to wait by a nearby house that later turns out to be the kgosi’s office.

The plot has several two-roomed houses lining up its boundary fence, and at the centre there is a humble leobo (meeting shelter) that can do with a facelift. However, since I am not here for that, this will be a story for another time.

It takes a while before the kgosi can reach me as he is interrupted by chatting up people as he approaches. I am in no hurry so I can wait. Ultimately he reaches where I am and ushers me into his office.

I introduce myself and we quickly move on to newsworthy stuff.
Mr. Benjamin Ooittuizen is a magnanimous man who takes me around the yard to meet other local leaders. And the place is in fact a multi-purpose domicile comprising, among other properties, Village Development Committee (VDC) and Cluster Policing Committee offices.
Inside the VDC offices there are two women in Mrs Neo Setlhare, the VDC chairperson and her colleague, Miss Bonnye Kgopiso. The chairperson says there was a split of what used to be Magokotswane ward along the main Molepolole road, with the southern part becoming Makgopeetsane.
However, since this has been the centre of the previous administration, they have retained most of the administrative structures, which has meant that they continued to share revenue from rentals accrued from within the yard with those across the main road, Ms Setlhare adds.
This state of affairs, she says stifles their own development because they depend a lot on rental monies to pursue their agendas.
In the Cluster Policing Committee offices, there are a number of cluster members wearing their typical reflective yellow jackets.
Their supervisor is Ms Banyana Nkwe who laments that despite at least having a job and contributing towards curbing crime, sometimes they are let down by fellow law enforcers who let loose culprits they have apprehended.

The suspects usually go back to their bad way of committing crime, she says, adding that there is also the challenge of transport as they rely on the police vehicles that too are in short supply.

She says they often encounter cases ranging from malicious damage to property to public nuisance and theft.

Here too there is the ward councilor Michael Bagopi who says his main concern is that there is the lack of proper roads in his ward, except gravel ones that are perennially washed away as soon as rains came.

Councillor Bagopi feels it is a waste of money to keep on maintaining the roads when the landscape in the area is mostly sloping and thus susceptible to heavy flooding.

He adds that although he would rather have tarred the roads around his area, he understands the budgetary constraints they are going through.

“We have also appealed to the local land board to help move people out of the flood-prone valley.

I am worried that the traditional methods of allocating plots have made it difficult to build proper drainage systems around the whole village of Molepolole,” he says.

The new Molepolole Development Plan has failed to take cognisance of this problem, the legislator poi ten out, citing Magokotswane Primary School, whose toilets are constantly flooded, as an example because they have been built on low ground.

He says though they had lobbied for the new Molepolole Central Business District be built in their ward with its ample unused land, they were outvoted by those who felt that Borakalalo ward was best suited for the project.

This is despite the high cost the council is likely to incur when moving and compensating people already staying there.

He is also concerned about the small size of the local clinic and the limited number of nurses (two) who man it, saying the ward has grown in population, which means a heavy workload for the nurses concerned.

The local legislator says the council has long decided to fill up an abandoned quarry on the eastern side of the ward left by the contractor who built the Molepolole–Gaborone road as it posed serious danger to humans.

Cattle farmers are also now using it as a dam and their cattle have to cross the busy highway, ending up causing accidents. ENDS