26 Aug 2014

Citizen participation in an election process is critical in maintaining democratic ideals of peace and tranquility, the Member of Parliament for Molepolole South, Mr Daniel Kwelagobe has said.

Addressing a kgotla meeting at Lephaleng ward recently, Mr Kwelagobe said peace and tranquility had become part and parcel of cultural norms and values espoused by Batswana.

He said it was regressive when the society did not take part in elections, advising that societal participation during electioneering time was critical in building an efficient and stable democratic government.

He said it was a worrying trend to see few people having registered to vote; equally it was worrying when even those who had registered failed to vote and ss such, he called on Batswana to make the coming election different by voting in large numbers because no government will enjoy its mandate if only few people voted.

Mr Kwelagobe said Botswana should continue to be exemplary to the rest of the world that indeed democracy in Africa was possible by maintaining the spirit of political tolerance which Botswana is widely praised for.

He said whilst in many nations people still struggled to be allowed the right to self-determination by electing government of their choice, Batswana had worked hard to achieve democracy.

He thus encouraged them to shun violence, civil strife seen in other nations during election periods.

The MP also encouraged residents to utilise government programmes because such programmes were not always forever citing the discontinuation of ALDEP, SLOCA, ARAP and AFP which Batswana are fervently calling for their re-introduction yet they failed to utilise them in the past.

He said in the past season, most farmers did well and called on them to strive for bumper harvest in the coming season by employing better farming methods such as row planting, using improved seeds, fertilizers and herbicides to fight weeds through the Integrated Support Programme for Arable Agriculture Development (ISPAAD) assistance.

For their part, the youth complained that the social workers way of assessing was disadvantageous to them because it usually based on what their parents had and not on what the beneficiaries have, even where the youth are independent.

The fact that most youth did not have residential plots to start own family compounded the problems, the youth complained, adding that where some have plots they are unable to build own shelter because they don’t have income.

As a result, they resort to staying with parents and during assessment only the owner of the yard will be assisted whilst they are treated as dependents even when they have kids to care for.

Some complained that Molepolole and Kweneng Land board take long to process change of ownership and allocation of plots which impede them to utilise government farming programmes.

On the issues of wildlife-human conflict in the area, Mr Kwelagobe advised residents to register issues of crop damage by wild animals with Molepolole wildlife office.

He promised to do his best and engage government on the issues since it was futile for government to invest huge sums of money to assist farmers only for wild animals to benefit.

He encouraged residents to always attend meetings called by land board who are mandated to look after land, and to always report to relevant authorities incidents of corrupt land officials rather than complain during kgotla meetings, because corruption has the potential to destroy the economy and chase investors. Ends