27 Feb 2013

The majority of MPs supported the request by the Minister of Labour and Home Affairs, Mr Edwin Batshu to be allocated P43 million as development budget and P403 933 390 as recurrent budget.

The MP for Mahalapye East, Ms Botlogile Tshireletso said she had no problems with the minister’s request and thanked the ministry for highlighting 16 days of activism against gender based violence.

She also applauded the women’s affairs department for hosting a gender pitso for traditional leaders last year. She observed that people in rural areas usually associated gender issues with residents of urban areas.

 However, Ms Tshireletso urged the ministry to work hard at raising awareness of women’s economic empowerment programmes noting that the number of those who had been assisted was still low.

 The MP for Kanye South, Mr Abram Kesupile supported the minister but wondered why the department of women’s affairs was changing its name when the condition of women had not improved a lot.  He cautioned the ministry against getting carried away with issues of gender neutrality when it was well known that women in Botswana were still marginalised.

Mr Kesupile also applauded the minister for continuing to assist ex-South African miners to get their dues from former employers. He also stressed that the ministry had to find a way of knowing the number of employees who were living with disabilities.

For his part, the MP for Gaborone West South, Mr Botsalo Ntuane said Botswana was a small country which proved attractive to many people.

While he agreed that not everybody who wanted to reside in the country should be allowed to do so, he cautioned that the country should not close out people who are of high value to the economy.

“There is a spate of deportations which might deter foreign direct investment,” he said. Investors, he highlighted, wanted to be certain about their status in the country.

Prohibiting people was not an incentive to attracting foreign direct investment, the legislator noted. He said that if a person posed a security threat to the country it was understandable when they were deported, but said that in other cases when people did not meet certain immigration requirements, they needed to be given time to wind up their businesses.

MP Ntuane said that deportations should be carried out in a humane way taking into consideration the fact that Batswana employees are always left in the lurch without being paid severance packages and banks are left with no mechanisms to recoup loans.

The MP also informed Parliament that the home affairs ministry needed to review immigration laws to allow those who are deported recourse by holding hearings in camera instead of denying them the opportunity to be heard.

He also applauded the ministry for improved service at border posts but noted that some ablution blocks at points of entry left a lot to be desired and gave people negative perceptions of the country.

The MP for Chobe, Mr Gibson Nshimwe supported the minister’s request and said he hoped that congestion at the department of civil and national registration would be resolved as a matter of urgency.

He complained that Batswana in his constituency who had been in the country before independence were failing to obtain citizenship, hence could not benefit from the old age pension and destitute programmes. He also applauded the ministry for coming up with the revised point based system and noted that it would assist in attracting investors who respect the country’s labour laws.

“For a long time some of the investors had been mistreating employees, failing to provide protective clothing and insurance to their workers,” he highlighted.

The MP for Francistown South, Mr Wynter Mmolotsi told Parliament that employees had given up hope on the department of labour and social security because it was toothless in resolving industrial disputes.

He called for the review of the minimum wage explaining that it was too low and provided opportunities for exploitation.

Mr Mmolotsi said that although the internship programme was good there was no mechanism to ensure that the graduates get jobs when they exit after two years. ENDS