Khama defends Sinvula nomination
Warning: Missing argument 3 for wordtwit_make_tinyurl(), called in /home/pcool232/public_html/iankhama/wp-content/plugins/wordtwit/wordtwit.php on line 964 and defined in /home/pcool232/public_html/iankhama/wp-content/plugins/wordtwit/wordtwit.php on line 469
KASANE – President Lt Gen. Seretse Khama Ian Khama has told Chobe residents that the nomination of Kgosi Moffat Sinvula of Mabele to Ntlo ya Dikgosi was based on his capabilities.
Addressing a kgotla meeting in Pandamatenga, General Khama said he was not looking at geographical locations when he nominated Kgosi Sinvula.
The President was responding to complaint from a resident who told the meeting that the office of the district commissioner had not responded to the letter they had written on the issue.
The residents had written a letter to the district commissioner querying the appointment of Kgosi Sinvula and Kgosi Mmualefhe Mmualefhe from Chobe enclave west to represent the area at Ntlo ya Dikgosi, saying that left their area unrepresented.
Residents felt that another leader should have been chosen from Chobe Enclave East.
General Khama further told them that he saw nothing wrong to appoint the two people from the same area, adding that he and the vice president were also from Serowe and still people did not complain about it.
He said special nominations were done based on the capabilities of individuals not places where they came from, saying the nationa will suffer a great setback if appointments were to be done based on places of origin or geographical locations.
When I appointed Kgosi Sinvula as a special nominee to Ntlo ya Dikgosi I did not consider that another area representative, Kgosi Mmualefhe comes from Kachikau which is near. There are various reasons that I considered.
The president further urged the community to support those who had been nominated so that they were successful in their endeavour to serve the public.
He told the meeting that he had instructed the minister of local government to increase the number of nominated councillors with more women and the youth.
For his part, agriculture minister, Mr Christian De Graaff told the meeting that the Pandamatenga infrastructure development project would start next year October, saying the projects would include internal roads and drainage system.
Mr De Graaff said his minister was working hard to make it possible for farmers to use genetically modified seeds in Pandamatenga so that they were able to compete with other countries.
We are looking at protocol to ensure that next ploughing session the genetically modified seeds can be used.
Regarding the of qualified birds and floods that destroyed crops in the farms last year, he said the government had agreed to help farmers with the cut-off date after which sorghum and millet would not be allowed in the lands as a way of avoiding the quilea birds.
Youth in the Pandamatenga also complained that they could not access youth programme in the area, citing shortage of land in the area as the problem.