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From 6 July 2006, a graphic version of the current edition is available at the Daily News Online web site.

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Speaking in Maun last week during the ongoing Radio Botswana political debate, candidates from opposition parties criticised Botswana Democratic Party for doing nothing about problems affecting the community, while BDP candidates countered by saying something was being done to address such problems.

Maun West constituency candidate for Botswana Congress Party, Otsile Ditsheko, said the BDP was to blame for the Okavango river's failure to flow into the Thamalakane River and beyond as it had been the norm in the past.

He said before independence, the Okavango river used to supply people and livestock in the vicinity with enough water to as far as Boteti and Lake Ngami systems, but ever since BDP took over power, the river has been failing to reach even Maun.

He accused the BDP government of colluding and giving private interests total control of the Okavango river flows at the expense of ordinary Batswana. Such practices, he suggested, had blocked the river at various points upstream, hence its failure to reach even Maun, (but he could not say where, when asked).

Letlhogile Setlhoko, BAM's Maun West parliamentary candidate, also representing PACT, said a permanent solution to the water crisis in Maun would be to consider getting it from perennial water sources such as the Chobe River, adding that underground water was unreliable.

He criticised the Maun Water Affairs Department for supplying the community with dirty and saline water, saying such water was not fit for human consumption.

Although the BDP candidate for Maun West, Ronald Ridge concurred that Maun has a water problem of water, he denied the accusation that government was doing nothing about it.

He pointed out that government had always and continues to address the problem at all costs, adding that currently, a major project involving the upgrading and rehabilitation of water supply and reticulation around Maun was ongoing.

On the failure of the Okavango river waters to reach Maun as it used to, Ridge blamed the phenomenon on the advent of poor rainfall, saying it is not convincing to blame the BDP for poor rains.

Responding to Ditsheko's accusation that government and its allies have blocked the river, he said the suggestion was ironic because Batawana rejected government's dredging project intended to clear passageways for the free flow of water sometime ago.

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