This week’s flurry of press statements from the two utility corporations that are in dispute with Phakalane Estates over provision of primary infrastructure offers no hope of a settlement anytime soon. If anything, it’s an indication of hardened positions. The argument is over interpretation of the Township Act, and who is required to provide primary infrastructure in a private land development.
As a result of the impasse, the 600 houses constructed in Phakalane by another Parastatal, the Botswana Housing Corporation (BHC), cannot be handed over to their buyers because they have not been provided with water and power.
Other planned projects in the township, a 220-plot enclosed residential development and 100 industrial plots, cannot proceed. It is envisaged that the two developments will increase pressure on the existing infrastructure, and therefore there is need to increase capacity.
However, both BPC and WUC insist that Phakalane Estates, as the developer, should pay for the necessary improvements on the infrastructure. WUC is known to have stated that though it (WUC) has taken over responsibility for the township’s sewer system, Phakalane is freehold land, whose infrastructure development has to be undertaken by the developer.
It is understood that the existing pump station is overloaded and would not be able to cope with additional inflows from the 600 BHC houses as well as the other planned development.
In this week’s statement published in The Monitor, WUC states that to connect water to additional developments in Phakalane would cause an environmental catastrophe, given the inadequate sewage disposal outlet.
“As a precautionary measure and in accordance with its mandate, WUC maintains its stand to await the provision of the necessary infrastructure by the responsible parties before the said developments can be connected to the water supply,” the statement reads.
In making reference to provision of the necessary infrastructure by unnamed responsible parties, the implication is that Phakalane Estates has to upgrade the sewer system. It is estimated that to upgrade the sewer pump station would cost in the region of P30million.
BPC has taken out an advert, also in The Monitor, to state its case that connecting power to the two planned developments would require an extension of the existing network, and that it has developed alternative cost options which “it is in the process of discussions with the developer to select and make payment arrangements, after which work to bring power to the developments will commence”. BPC is known to have presented Phakalane Estates with a quotation for P22million for the upgrading of its substation.
Phakalane Estates’ chairman, David Magang, insists that his reading of the law is that primary infrastructure and services ÔÇô such as main sewer pipes, main water pipes, and main roads ÔÇô is the responsibility of utility corporations or government, while the developer is responsible for secondary or tertiary infrastructure, which are the connections from the individual plots into the main lines.
He maintains that the two corporations have to provide the said infrastructure in accordance with the law because nothing was done behind their backs, as they were taken on board since the beginning.
He points to the development taking place across the A1 highway in Gaborone North, where government is putting infrastructure in yet another freehold farm that is being developed privately. The Gaborone North development is said to be part of the P2 billion infrastructure development that starts in Naledi.
Magang wonders why the double standards. It is a question that this week’s statements from BPC and WUC has not answered. He states that since Phakalane was incorporated into Gaborone in 1989, which is why any development should be approved by the city council, BPC and WUC are obliged to provide primary infrastructure and utilities.
“The Township Act is the same for all townships,” he sates. “We are not saying government is wrong to provide infrastructure in Gaborone North, because that is what it ought to do so that the private sector can then develop secondary and tertiary infrastructure. What we complain about is that government only provides service in Gaborone North, and not in Phakalane.”
He says there is a sinister motive behind the current standoff with the two parastatals, which, in the case of WUC, goes back over 20 years.
“Government is intent on sabotaging the success of Phakalane,” he states. “Our people still believe a nigger is incapable of doing certain things, which is why there no encouragement to Batswana [to dream big]; we must have done something outrageous to government or Batswana by starting something called Phakalane.”
In Government Enclave, there is discord. It is said that government once sought the opinion of Phandu Skelemani, the current foreign minister, when he was still Attorney General, regarding the Phakalane hot potato. His advice was that the law compelled government, through its corporations, to provide the primary infrastructure in the township. The advice was not followed through.
It has come to light that the latest development is that government has now offered to contribute 50 percent towards the needed developments to the Phakalane infrastructure ÔÇô a suggestion that the developer finds unappealing.
“We as Phakalane and the Magangs don’t want favours from anybody,” said Magang’s eldest son and the company’s managing director, Lesang. “We are citizens, and we want laws to apply equally to all citizens.”
Word has reached his ears that in some circles, talk is that, “boMagang ba sale ba jele, e bile ba batla go jela ruri” ÔÇô and therefore the family’s flagship enterprise has to be sabotaged.
“But the truth is that foreigners control this economy, and good luck to them,” he says. “What we want as Phakalane and the Magang family is to contribute our bit towards Botswana’s development.”
Lesang says the other agenda is to frustrate the family out of the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP), especially the younger man himself who is known to have some political ambitions because apparently the success of the family business makes him “dangerous to some people”.
“Let them know that ga re ye gope. I am BDP through and through,” he states.
Magang, who conceived of the idea of an upmarket township while still in his 40s, turns 74 this year. He looks back at the opportunities lost over the years due to “lehuha la Setswana”.
“If I were a white Motswana, by now our company would be all over Africa, having grown from home,” he says.
He son agrees.
“I want to be competing with the biggest companies on the continent. But I can’t do that if 80 percent of my time is spent arguing with government officials,” says Lesang.
