27 Nov 2024

Chobe District is in urgent need of development projects, particularly a hospital.

This, according to the area legislator, Mr Simasiku Mapulanga, forces residents of Chobe villages to travel about 600km to the nearest hospital to seek medical attention.

“Apart from associated financial implications, this is also in a way denying people the right to health,” he said on Tuesday, when responding to the State-of-the-Nation Address.

Mr Mapulanga therefore, pleaded that in the coming National Development Plan 12 starting in January, a hospital for the district should be prioritised among other necessary projects.

“This does not mean that other projects are not necessary. We are also in need of road networks and a secondary school, only that a need for a hospital is more dire,” he said.

He said that pupils from Chobe also travelled about 300 km to the nearest senior secondary school in Nata, which compromised the standard of education in the area.

Mr Mapulanga also complained about what he termed, unhygienic water consumed by Pandamatenga village.

Specially elected legislator, Maj. Gen Pius Mokgware for his part, said that before the new government could seek solutions to challenges that bedevilled the country, it had to first find the root causes.

Maj. Gen Mokgware said that such challenges included corruption, poor standard of education which led to unemployment as well as slow land allocation.

“Current plot allocations, especially in urban areas goes back to applications made as far back as 1992,” he said and called for a Judicial Commission of Enquiry into the state of affairs at the Mogoditshane Sub landboard.

“The problem of corrupt land allocations might be across the whole country, but Mogoditshane Sub landboard is where the cancer is rooted,” he said.

Maj. Gen Mokgware cited compensation in-kind arrangement by the sub land board, which was later invalidated by Kweneng main land board after people had already surrendered their ploughing fields.

He therefore, pleaded that the commission be made as a matter of urgency, while services at the sub land board should be suspended in the meanwhile.

Maj. Gen Mokgware also called for re-evaluation of most tenders awarded so that they could be first accounted for if found to be corruptly awarded. Member of Parliament for Kgalagadi North, Mr

Reason Lekutlane also decried what he said was poor state of health affairs in his constituency.

He said that people had to travel to Gaborone for specialist services as there were no such at Hukuntsi Primary Hospital.

He therefore, pleaded that some health posts in his area be upgraded to relief the hospital.

Mr Lekutlane also talked about deplorable state of water in his area, saying that some villages such as Ukhwi had highly saline water while Zutshwa and Ncaang did not have water altogether.

“It is a sad reality that even a village as big as Hukuntsi depends on boused water,” he said. ENDS