“We want to make use of the 50km buffer zone from the river to develop community business like artefact market, restaurants and volleyball beaches along the river”
In 2004 a young and ambitious Ronald Shamukuni lost to the late Duncan Mlazie (MHSRIP) in the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) primary elections in the Chobe Constituency.
In the corner of the losing candidate was a feisty 24-year old Chartered Accountant, Oscar Simasiku Mapulanga who was part of his campaign team ahead of the elections.
The following year in 2005 Mapulanga and many others decamped to the opposition Botswana Congress Party and has never looked back. Mapulanga refers to himself as a human rights activist who has worked with different unions in pursuit of social justice.
He is member of different organisations including Chobe Regional Football, Sisiyankulu Trust, Botswana Bank Employees Union and many others.
Now retired, after a career spanning close to two decades, Mapulanga is now a farmer and a stalwart of the BCP.
He first contested for the BCP primaries in 2013 and lost to the eventual winner and the late former Chobe MP Gibson Nshimwe.
In 2019 as a deployee of the Umbrela Democratic Change (UDC) Mapulanga lost to Shamukuni of the BDP, who went on to win the constituency.
Now in 2024 Mapulanga is back and looking to claim a constituency he has been chasing since 2014.
Q. You’ve rubbed shoulders and bumped heads with all the political veterans in Chobe for over 21 years. This will be your third shot at being a Member of Parliament. Why do you want to lead this Constituency?
The political journey in the country means one has to dig deep in to their pockets.
It’s an expensive excise, but the passion we have for our people is what drives us.
I keep coming back because I’ve a desire to serve and change the fortunes of the Chobe people.
Q. What are your plans for the constituency?
My campaign is based on four components.
Human development, Service delivery, Land reform and Natural resources beneficiation.
Q. Interesting. Can you expand on that?
This district looks beautiful from a distance.
But do you know that at the moment we only have two junior schools.
We’ve no senior school and no vocational institution that offers quality education.
When we talk of human development, Chobe people are disadvantaged.
The education infrastructure is very poor.
When our kids complete junior school, they are posted to Nata Senior, but since the boys hostels burnt down, they are now sent to Shashe River School, McConnel and Maun.
This has seriously impacted our kids negatively.
A senior school is a motivation.
Seeing someone going to a senior school motivates others, sadly kids in Chobe will never experience that.
Q. What other issues of human development are lacking in Chobe.
We desperately need a hospital.
The nearest referral hospital is over 600km away in Francistown.
How do families take care of their sick when they’re that far.
This is something the ruling party takes for granted, but when you’re sick you need the company of your family members to give you hope and strength to fight.
We’ve been promised a hospital and senior school since 1998, and plots were even allocated.
It is now 2024, 26 years since that promise by the BDP.
A stadium was also promised and never delivered.
Our talented athletes are at a disadvantage.
We’ve national team caliber athletes who have nowhere to train.
The BDP is failing to provide just a 7000 capacity stadium.
This stadium will host even teams from Zimbabwe, Namibia and Zambia because we are close.
Q. You also talked about lack of a vocational institution. What about Chobe Brigade?
It offers only three courses, carpentry, bricklaying and auto mechanics.
What happens to those who want to study Hospitality Management, Beauty Therapy and even IT? The cut off point for tertiary institutions is 36 points, where do all these students go.
Chobe parents are forced to fund their children’s education, paying rent for them in places like Francistown and Gaborone.
Q. You also talked about land reform as one of your four components. Care to expound?
The mixed land use in Chobe has been detrimental to our people, and only the BCP has a plan to give our people a chance in life.
Only 21 percent of land in Chobe is for the community, the rest belongs to the animals.
Now these animals are leaving their land where they’re protected and squeezing out people on this limited area of land.
Instead of dealing with this spillage of animals, people are asked to co-exist.
This is not sustainable.
People must plough.
Now our only source of food is from the big farms in Pandamatenga who are not in the hands of native Batswana.
You’ve to know that if you don’t control what you eat, you’re bound to be subordinate to someone.
The silos you see in Panda were built by our forefathers, they used to till this land.
Q. What solutions does the BCP have?
One of our solutions is advocating to campsites owned by some of our people to be inside the park.
There’s no value in having a campsite in Kasane or the village.
Having campsites inside the park will definitely reduce poaching as any suspicious movement is bound to be notice.
A camp inside the park will also have a bearing on price value.
We need to amend the Land Policy Reform.
From 1966 Batswana were relocated to make way for the Park, but they were never compensated.
Areas like Linyanti were prime areas and tribal shrines.
Q. The third component is service delivery. How do you plan to improver delivery of service?
People are willing to work for government, but are frustrated by the working conditions like lack of institutional houses.
A quick example. Pandamatenga does not have portable water, but just 70km away in Lesoma there’s water.
There’s no need to flight a tender to bring water to Pandamatenga.
This can be done in six months if allowed to be done in-house.
They’ve the capacity.
Its the same thing with roads, Roads Department has all the Engineers and all the experts, who have now been turned into administrators.
If we did some of these projects, we’d seriously cut on costs and delivery time.
Q. You also talked about beneficiation.
If you’re a regular here you’ll know that there are only two activities, game drive and boat cruise.
Kasane face lift will change all that and add a third or even fourth event.
We want to make use of the 50km buffer zone from the river to develop community business like artefact market, restaurants and volleyball beaches along the river.
Our people must have access to this river, a natural resource in their district.
