Cllrs call TK�s bluff on Citizen Empowerment Vows
Boniface Keakabetse | Monday April 10, 2017 14:01
“So long I am the Minister, I will ensure that you graduate from being fishermen and Mokoro poolers so that you can own the tourism industry. I am concerned that tourism is dominated by foreigners,” Khama said. But the Councillors said Khama was not practising what he preached.
Councillor Boro Senonori blamed Government for a systematic intensification of policies that stifle Batswana from taking part in the tourism sector. As an example, Senonori said Khama’s Ministry through a directive, has blocked all new companies from doing tour operations in Moremi and Chobe.
Khama, however insisted that under the land bank in his Ministry, some of the existing tourism big concessions would be sub-zoned to give more Batswana a chance to enter the tourism sector. He said groups such as youth and women will be allocated concessions and campsites in areas such as the delta.
In 2014, through a Ministerial directive, all prime tourism concession areas in Botswana including the Okavango Delta, Chobe, Central Kalahari Game Reserve were transferred from Land Boards to the Ministry of Lands, and eventually the Ministry of Environment, and Natural Resources, Conservation and Tourism and its parastal, the Botswana Tourism Organisation.
But Makgobokgobo legislator, Luke Motlaleselelo, whose ward is the Okavango Delta, told the Minister that the land bank violated the laws of Botswana.
Motlaleselelo said the Tribal land act gave Land Boards rights to manage land in tribal areas and no other setup such as the land bank can legally be mandated to manage land. He wanted to know why the land had to be transferred to Botswana Tourism Organisation from the Land Boards, which are directly answerable to the community.
Khama responded that the Attorney General gave them the green light to set the land bank. He explained that the bank makes it easier for the facilitation and allocation of tourism land to prospective investors.
Motlaleselelo further complained that the land bank communities would lose some powers they had. He noted that lease agreements under the new initiative will be signed between tourism operators and Ministry of Land, unlike under the past arrangement when leases were signed between communities and tourism operators for sublease of tourism concessions under Community based natural resources programme.
According to Motlaleselelo, this means communities will lose access to veldt products such as building materials, edibles and other veldt resources whose livelihoods are dependent on.
Even when Khama complained about rampant misuse of community trusts funds, the councillors were always one up against him, sort of, laughing him out of Court.