11 May 2014

Kgosi Rapelang Khuwe of Marobela in Tonota North constituency has appealed to the government to consider tightening laws for people found selling drugs to children.

Kgosi Khuwe made the plea during a kgotla meeting addressed by the area MP, Mr Fidelis Molao on May 8. He said some street vendors, who pretended to be selling children sweets were the same perpetrators who exposed children to drugs.

Furthermore, he noted that such a phenomenon was popular at secondary schools, but that the situation had become bad in that the drug dealers had invaded primary schools.

He said at one of the primary schools, the police had to be called as pupils between caused chaos at the school insulting other students and teachers. 

Such incidents, he stated, were disturbing since it was not only affecting drug victims, but other pupils who were not involved in the habit. 

He expressed disappointment at some parents who despite having knowledge about the culprits who sell drugs to pupils would rather opt not to report or even act as whistle blowers. Mr Molao also expressed his disappointment with parents and members of the community who do not report drug dealers to the police. 

He said it was upon them to save their children by coming forward to share information with the police so that action could be taken against such people.

“We are not helping anybody if we decide not to report matters which are affecting the community and the village as a whole. Let us work with the police to bring and maintain order within our village,” he stressed.

On other issues, residents complained about the use of hybrid seeds which they said were only used once, noting that with such seeds, farmers were unable to safely keep their own seeds from the yields they had made for the next ploughing season. 

They said it results in almost every farmer relying on the government to supply them with seeds every ploughing season.

One resident, Mr Robert Baraedi urged the Ministry of Agriculture to search for seeds which could be used more than once and that were accommodative to local weather conditions.

In his response, Mr Molao said the aim of the government through the Integrated Support Programme for Arable Agriculture Development (ISPAAD) programme was to encourage farmers to transform and adopt new technologies of farming.

He added that with the use of raw planting and hybrid seeds, the government wanted to have something which was accommodative to the unreliable rains that farmers could use to produce enough food in order to be able to sell. 

Mr Molao noted that it was expensive for the government to always issue seeds to farmers, hence it was advisable for farmers to also buy their own seeds after they have been assisted through ISPAAD payments. Ends