24 Jun 2014

Acting Minister for Presidential Affairs and Public Administration, Mr Shaw Kgathi has urged poverty eradication implementing officers to increase the number of beneficiaries in the category of success stories.

Officially opening a two-day capacity building workshop for the poverty eradication implementing officers in Palapye on June 23, Mr Kgathi said at the end of May, there were 9 936 projects funded nationally of which only 7 315 were operational whilst 2 468 were non-operational.

He said of the 7315 operational projects, 1 208 were successful, translating to 12 per cent of the beneficiaries, which could be viewed as having totally stepped out of poverty and were less likely to fall back into poverty.

“It is because of this that we have paused in the rollout of mega dipitso nationally and our focus is now shifting to cleaning up the backlog of mobilised and trained beneficiaries and in the capacity building of both the implementers and beneficiaries” he said.

He said the ceiling per project per beneficiary had been raised from P10 000 to P15 000 to adjust for inflation. He said all outstanding water bills for beneficiaries given backyard gardens were to be cleared to enable them to produce.

In view of poverty eradication being a flagship programme, he said implementing ministries would now be requested to report on their contributions to the programmes as part of their performance reviews

He said budget allocations per constituency were dependent on poverty levels, adding “we are now shifting the focus from top down planning to bottom up planning in development of new packages.” He therefore urged implementing officers to develop new packages suitable to their geographical locations.

Such packages, he said ,should however be subjected to a rigorous process of validation to ensure that they are viable and sustainable in the long term and enable beneficiaries to step out of poverty.

Mr Kgathi said there was need for creation of access to markets, adding that having access to markets enabled beneficiaries to focus on their core expertise, with the confidence of knowing that products had a market.

“Our beneficiaries do not have the high level skills or the resources to do effective marketing by themselves.  It is up to you to aid them in securing markets,” he said.

The minister also stated that his ministry will send a delegation to Israel on a study tour to learn and adapt successes in creation of market access for agricultural produce and non-agricultural produce for the micro and small scale businesses.

To assist in monitoring projects, he implored them to ask retired officers in their localities to volunteer in monitoring projects and be remunerated at the level of the Village Development Committee chairperson.

The committee, he said should report to the Council secretary and the District Administrator on a weekly basis. ENDS