Dr Gobotswang looks back with pride
Former Sefhare-Ramokgonani legislator, Dr Kesitegile Gobotswang is grateful for all the achievements he earned during his maiden term as Member of Parliament (MP).
According to Dr Gobotswang, he looks back with pride for all the achievements which he says are many. Dr Gobotswang won the general election for the constituency against the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) former area MP Dorcas Makgato in October 2019. This was bittersweet victory since he had been trying several times without success.
The retired University of Botswana don says when he started his term he had clear priorities including water shortage, poor road infrastructure, access to Limpopo river and school furniture. He argues that by the end of the five-year term he had accomplished all his priorities.
'All the villages from the constituency are connected to North South Water Pipeline. All the tarred roads have been maintained. We also allocated P4.6 million Constituency Fund to purchase school furniture and mattresses for learners in boarding school,' Gobotswang said in an interview this week.
Under his persistent advocacy government finally gave in and agreed to allow access to Limpopo river under a strategic land acquisition dispensation. 'We deserve access to Limpopo for tourism, fishing and small scale irrigation scheme.'
Two of his motions adopted by Parliament included one calling on government to allow peasant farmers to use the broadcasting planting method under ISPAAD. The other and most recent called on the government to consider reducing the radius between boreholes from six kilometres to a kilometre.
Gobotswang said that advocating for the inclusion of development projects in the National Development Plan or District Development Plan (DDP) is the simplest thing to do, but the real challenge is execution or implementation of projects.
He said if the voice of a representative is muted, development projects will remain in the pipeline for ever. In some cases, planned development projects have been excluded from future NDPs. He explained that Sesholo Unified Secondary School and the second Ramokgonami primary school were once included in the NDP and later disappeared.
'When Makgato was elected in 2014 a technical college earmarked for Chadibe village, Mokobeng Clinic, and Radisele-Pilikwe road were in the plan. All of them were budgeted for. These projects were carried over from
Oreeditse Molebatsi's term.'
Gobotswang is expected to wrestle with Makgato, Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC)’s Shadrack Baaitse and Botswana Patriotic Front (BPF)’s Segaetsho Garekwe for the soul of the constituency on October 30, 2024.