Africa-Press – Botswana. Boro residents have raised concerns over delay in gazetting their settlement into a village.
Raising their concerns at a kgotla meeting addressed by MP for Maun North Mr Dumelang Saleshandoin Boro, residents opined that issues surrounding gazetting of their settlement brought confusion in that they received varying explanations from different stakeholders.
One resident Mr Gabofele Mokgwathi said that for decades they were told that Boro was only reserved for farms hence the respective landboard could not issue residential certificates even though there were homes there. He said in 2019 profiling was conducted in Boro to determine how many people resided there subsequent to which 39 people were issued residential certificates. He said they were told that Boro was incorporated under Maun Development Plan which meant that it didn’t need gazetting as Maun developments would expand there.
Mr Mokgwathi pointed out that residents had watched developments and services like water and electricity bypass their homes to Boro BDF camp and Boro Prisons because they didn’t have residential plots certificates.
Maun Sub Landboard Chairperson, Mr Ogaufi Monamisi explained that currently Boro was not gazetted as a village as they await an official statement to pronounce such. He acknowledged that profiling was conducted to determine who was in Boro adding that the landboard had not received any authorisation for allocating residential plots. He further said that Boro was endowed with natural resources sitting along Okavango Delta channels hence part of the land had been set aside for ecotourism projects.
Mr Monamisi indicated that some of the farms sat within the sites earmarked for ecotourism adding that consultations would be conducted to relinquish land to government and compensate owners accordingly. He assured residents that when Boro finally receives its gazetting, the landboard would allocate residential plots just like they did in Matsaudi and Sexaxa.
Mr Saleshando said there was need to expedite and resolve whether Boro was under Maun planning area so that if not it would be gazetted as a village. He said the matter of gazetting had prolonged hence hindered growth. He implored people of Ngamiland to be vocal about land issues citing an example of Balete who took government to court over land disputes and won. Mr Saleshando asked residents to explore the ecotourism project and understand what it entailed so that they benefited from it instead of people from outside descending in Boro to benefit.
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