TRICKED FOR VOTES
WHEN President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi gave a green light for Batswana to subdivide their ploughing fields to embark on other business ventures in 2019, little did he know that he was opening floodgates that would cause financial ruin to many.
Hundreds of excited Batswana heeded the president’s pre-election call and subdivided their fields, either developing, selling, or embarking on other projects using finances acquired from commercial lenders.
Four years later, after the presidential directive CAB 14A of 2019, some land boards are in a desperate attempt to disown the actions of their sub land boards and this is likely to destabilise the country’s financial sector, dent the government’s reliability and cause financial embarrassment to land owners among others, according to a veteran land surveyor and social justice activist, Gilbert Sesinyi.
While the Kweneng Main Land Board has disowned decisions of Mogoditshane Sub Land Board recently, in Kgatleng, the matter reached the Office of the President back in 2021.
Like their counterparts in Mogoditshane, Oodi Sub Land Board approved the subdivisions under their jurisdiction, but Kgatleng Main Land Board has disagreed with the sub land board’s interpretation of the law concerning the subdivision of ploughing fields for unrelated purposes to achieve mixed use of land.
In a letter written to Chief of Staff, Boyce Sebetela, dated 31st August, 2021 Sesinyi complained about what he called ‘abuse of power by Kgatleng Main Land Board to disenfranchise fellow Batswana.’”
On behalf of 30 people from Kgatleng villages, he said the group applied to have their fields changed into mixed use and their applications were approved by Oodi Sub Land Board, mostly in 2019.
The 30 include landowners, buyers and property developers who bought land from the owners, as well as service providers.
“Investments and infrastructure worth millions have been made in various businesses, hiring other Batswana in the process. The Kgatleng Main Land Board’s position is that it has revoked these approvals or planning permissions because the sub land board made decisions that are outside their powers,” said Sesinyi.
He noted that his clients, with approvals and with millions worth of infrastructure, are stranded as their properties are deteriorating, while land board officials are not bothered at all, not even attempting to respond to court cases emanating from their actions.
“We have exhausted engagement at all levels up to Office of the President. In a written response to us, the office of PSP informed us that the land board has undertaken to resolve the issues by end of March 2021.”
GOVERNMENT
They requested urgent intervention to restore services of land board to avert further delays and litigation costs to them and the government.
The office of the chief of staff did not respond to the request to this day. Over 350 available plots that could be housing Batswana, some of which we generously gave to government to give other Batswana, are available, but the land board has made them to be unusable,” read their letter.
At the time of going to print, the Ministry of Lands, Water and Sanitation had not responded to complaints against neither of the two land boards, nor had it responded to our enquiry. However, this publication has established that the existing tribal act carefully prescribes in detail what sort of developments can be carried out in a field and anything outside of the prescribed specifications would be treated as illegal structures.