A Botswana Congress Party (BCP) parliamentary candidate for Kweneng South constituency, Mozambia Dibe’s name is mentioned in a double allocation row.
The plot in question is number 165, allocated in 1997, at Mankgodi Village.
Some in his community accuse him of using his financial muscle to disadvantage the less endowed.
An applicant who was allocated land in 1997, but only managed to purchase building materials and be ready to develop the plot in 2012, was instructed not to develop the plot as another person had shown he owned the same plot.
The applicant, Kgarebe Popota Sekgwane, said she abided by the land board instructions and went to the Land Board office to meet with the other applicant and the Thamaga Sub Land Board.
“I went there following an invitation I got, for the 7 November 2012. I was surprised to get there and find that the man did not turn up for the meeting. I heard later that the man had instead come to Mankgodi main kgotla. This became the norm. Every time the invitations called us to the offices he came to Mankgodi kgotla. I am really losing patience because I want to finish building. I could be staying in my plot right now had it not been for this man,” said Sekgwane during a kgotla meeting addressed by Thamaga Land Board recently. The land board Chairperson advised her to be patient and stop development.
After the meeting, she revealed together with another woman she was with that Plot number 164 that belonged to Dibe was in fact occupied by someone else and not her. She said though she has never spoken eyeball to eyeball with Dibe her builders told her that Dibe had instructed them to stop as the issue of the plot was with the Land Board.
An elderly man said the man was in the practice of going around purchasing plots and building two roomed houses.
“He has plots all over and though he wants to stand for political office he wants to make the less gifted members of the society suffer by applying his tactics. This woman is allocated in demarcated plots, not in-fillings where there often are fights over plot boundaries. He is just playing his tricks,” he said.
But Dibe denied it in interview with Sunday Standard that he ever instructed the woman’s contractors to stop building. Except for one conversation he had with the woman he only knew as Popota, they really did not know each other physically.
“The plots at that area are mixed up. In a bid to help them resolve the confusion amicably I suggested that since I have title deed for my plot number 164, they could purchase the title deed. That way they would continue developing their plots while I took an undeveloped one. They did not buy my idea so I went to the Land Board whereupon they wrote her a letter,” explained Dibe. He mistook venues for the Land board meetings that were meant to handle their case.
He dismisses allegations that he goes around purchasing plots. As long as he did it legally there was nothing wrong with it; but that is not what he did. He has a plot near his mother’s home. Plot number 164 is his second plot. He expressed his intention to follow-up the issue with the land board as it seems people are beginning to negatively interfere. “I am the one to whom injustice has been done.”
Though he did not want to say whether he was vying for political office or not, he admitted that he was a card carrying member of BCP.
“That I am standing for a political seat is another issue. I am a card carrying member of BCP,” he curtly said.
But a BCP Councilor revealed that he and another candidate will be contesting for the parliamentary seat in the constituency.
