16 Feb 2025

Mogoditshane, the country's largest peri-urban village by population, requires its own unique management that caters for its peculiar needs, Mogoditshane East legislator, Mr Letlhogonolo Barongwang has told Parliament.

In his submission to the Budget Speech debate on Thursday, Mr Barongwang said Mogoditshane was a cosmopolitan area different from rural areas close to it and thus needed to either be declared a township or managed separately from the Thamaga-Mogoditshane District.

He lauded the Budget presented by Vice President and Minister of Finance Ndaba Gaolathe as a relevant and ideal for the country’s current circumstances.

He said spreading development projects and economic activities nationally, such would help curb rural-urban migration.

From the budget, Mr Barongwang said he noted an effort to stimulate private sector participation in the economy, adding it contained measures to attract foreign and domestic investors as well as to motivate the labour force, which he said would have the effect of boosting productivity.

Social ills such as petty crime and gender-based violence were caused by the state of the economy.

Mr Barongwang said the current budget would initiate steps to find solutions through improving social development. He said most homes in Botswana were female-headed households, adding he supported any interventions towards women empowerment.

He said the budget as presented would set the country on a path towards reducing leakages from government coffers, halting corruption, and called for better declaration of royalties by mines and quarries.

He called for a legislation that ensured that no one implicated in corruption was immune because of the office they occupy, but rather answerable in their private capacity. ENDS