National plot waiting list decreases - Land minister

The national waiting list for plots has been reduced from just over 1 million to 630 000, Minister of Land Management, Water and Sanitation Services Mr Kefentse Mzwinila has revealed.

Addressing the ministry’s fourth leadership forum in Palapye recently, Mr Mzwinila stressed the need to come up with ways of accelerating land allocation, bearing in mind that the ministry had been entrusted with the resource for future generations.

He said the challenges experienced in land allocation should also be borne in mind, adding that it was the responsibility of the ministry leadership to come up with solutions.

Mr Mzwinila said Botswana was in an era where land acquisition and servicing, design and layout as well as geo-technical and environmental assessment were expensive.

Calling for prudent management of land, the minister said vertical rather than horizontal usage should be considered.

He told the ministry’s top brass that prudent management of resources was important for the realisation of the national transformation agenda.

Minister Mzwinila said land and water, which the ministry had been assigned to manage, were finite resources which needed to be managed sustainably.

The ministry, he said, played a critical role in facilitating socio-economic development in the country.

The aim of the week-long forum, held under the theme; Decisive Transformative Solutions in the Management of Land and Water Resources - Towards a Transformed Botswana, was to provide strategic and policy direction for the ministry, he said.

Mr Mzwinila said the ministry was expected to have completed its land and water sectors transformation exercises in approximately four months.

The exercises, he said, would be aligned to the national transformation agenda.