Property – Infrastructure & Megaprojects · Editorial

By Moakanyi Magazine · June 2026

Most district councils in Botswana run on money raised elsewhere, dependent on central transfers and thin on revenue of their own. That structural dependence is the backdrop to a June 2026 plan from Letlhakeng District Council, which is moving to build assets that throw off income instead of waiting for the next allocation.

The council's stated direction covers three projects: solar farms, a commercial farming cluster and a modern bus-rank centre. Read together, they are less a wish list than a small portfolio, each item chosen to generate a different kind of return – energy, agricultural value and the steady rents and fees that come with a busy transport node. The diversification is the point: three uncorrelated income lines are more resilient than one.

The Logic: Assets That Pay

A solar farm sells power and, where regulation allows, can feed a grid or anchor local supply – a live opportunity in a country that still imports a share of its electricity and is pushing to widen domestic generation. A commercial farming cluster concentrates production, shared inputs and processing in one place, lifting smallholders into something closer to a value chain rather than scattered subsistence plots. A modern bus-rank centre formalises the informal trade that already gathers around transport, turning foot traffic into lettable space and collectable fees.

For a district authority, the appeal is that each asset converts something the area already has – sun, land, movement of people – into a recurring receipt the council controls. That is a different model from chasing one-off grants, and it changes the council's relationship with central government from supplicant toward partner. It also keeps value local: a farming cluster that processes near the farm, or a bus rank that lets traders to nearby residents, recycles spending inside the district instead of exporting it to Gaborone.

Owning the asset, not just hosting the activity, is what turns a district into an earner.

The Catch: Building Is the Easy Part

Each project carries the same risk that has stranded municipal ventures across the region – the gap between announcing infrastructure and operating it well. A solar farm needs maintenance and a buyer for its output; a farming cluster needs offtake and water security in a district that sits toward the dry Kgalagadi side of the country; a bus-rank centre earns only if it is managed, not merely built. The capital cost is also rarely within a council's own balance sheet, which means partners, and partners want governance they can trust.

The plan is the right instinct for a council trying to widen its revenue base. Whether it pays out will depend on execution, on procurement that survives scrutiny, and on operators willing to carry the running risk – not on the announcement itself. The financing structure will tell the real story: a private partner on a long concession transfers operating risk but shares the return, while a council that builds and runs the assets alone keeps the upside and the exposure both.

Revenue independence is won in the years after the ribbon, not on the day of it.

The Wider Read: Devolution Through Earnings

There is a national argument buried in this local plan. Botswana's diversification debate has long focused on the centre – on weaning the budget off diamond revenue through SEZs, manufacturing and tourism. Letlhakeng points at the same problem from the bottom up. If districts can generate their own income, the case for fiscal devolution stops being about redistributing central money and becomes about expanding the base, which is a harder argument to refuse.

The constraint is capacity. District councils rarely carry the technical and commercial skills to structure a power-purchase arrangement or run a farming enterprise, and a project that depends on a single capable officer is fragile. The realistic path runs through partnerships with bodies such as CEDA for finance or BITC for investment matchmaking, and through operators who bring the discipline that an annual budget cycle does not teach.

Diversification is often pitched from the centre; this one is being attempted from the district.

For other district councils watching, Letlhakeng is a useful test case: a small authority trying to convert local assets into a durable income line. If even one of the three projects clears the gap from plan to performance, it offers a template more replicable than any single megaproject – and a quiet argument that fiscal devolution can start with councils building their own earnings rather than lobbying for larger transfers.

Sources: allAfrica