Africa-Press – Botswana. The Administration of Justice is in the process of establishing commercial courts that will deal with tender disputes cases only.
The envisaged commercial courts are expected to speed up the disposal of tender dispute cases in Botswana.
Responding to comments by some members of the local authorities in a one-day meeting to introduce the development manager model in Francistown on Monday, the Minister of Transport and Public Works, Mr Eric Molale explained that the establishment of such courts was necessitated by the fact that there was too much litigation on such disputes which stalled developments.
He said the courts would be efficient and cost-effective with a focus on resolving disputes quickly and fairly.
The leadership had complained that some court cases on tender disputes took long to be resolved.
Also, local authorities’ top brass suggested that the government should consider introducing toll gates as a cost-recovery measure.
Mr Molale said tolling was provided for in the law and that the government was awaiting completion of the drafting of the toll-gates regulations.
However, the minister said toll gates must be complimented with alternative routes, stating that the government had already identified certain roads in the country that would be used as alternative routes.
Minister Molale also informed the leadership that P570 million had been set aside for community constituency projects in the 61 constituencies.
He stated that government had taken a decision to augment the figure with another P570 million from road levy, adding that the money would only be used to pave internal roads under the labour-intensive public works.
“All major roads are maintained by central government including the Kenneth Nkhwa interchange in Francistown,” he informed them.
Okavango District Council Chairperson, Mr Gaopalelwe Ronald said the development manager model would help in ensuring that the projects met regulatory requirements.
He decried the slow maintenance of government facilities such as health posts and clinics, noting that some of them were in a dilapidated state.Mr Ronald suggested that government put more emphasis on the decentralisation of powers to local authorities to fast-track service delivery.
In his welcome remarks, the Mayor of Francistown, Mr Godisang Radisigo, raised concern about the number of fatal road accidents along the A3 highway.
On the introduction of toll gates, he said they would help recover costs and the revenue would be spent on maintenance of roads.
Mr Radisigo explained that there was a countrywide public outcry about the slow pace of project delivery which also slows economic growth.
He appealed to government officials to desist from using COVID-19 as a scapegoat for not delivering projects on time.
“We in Francistown have reached an agreement that we are not going to use the pandemic as a scapegoat for not delivering services and projects on time,” he disclosed.
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