13 Jan 2015

Residents of Sebina in Shashe West constituency have suggested that the government should suspend registration of new churches for some time in an effort to control the current situation of mushrooming of new churches.

They proposed this during a kgotla meeting addressed by their Member of Parliament, Mr Fidelis Molao on Monday, January 12. 

The residents were commenting on the proposed amendments of the Societies Act Bill tabled during the past parliament session by the Minister of Labour and Home Affairs, Mr Edwin Batshu. 

A resident, Ms Florence Lesetedi said the proposal of increasing the number of people needed to register a church would not halt the registration as people have their ways of beating the system in terms of grouping people to get the required numbers.

She further highlighted that with just a population of almost 4 000, Sebina has about 31 registered churches.

Ms Lesetedi said most of these churches are formed in a short period of time by members who in most cases have left other churches as a result of misunderstandings over the use of funds.

Other residents suggested that since most of these churches were similar in their operations, those who decide to form a new church after frictions in theirs should be advised to join already existing ones. 

On other issues, the residents have decried lack of accommodation for nurses in their village, noting that some of them reside in surrounding places such as Francistown and Masunga. 

They pleaded that during the refurbishment and upgrading of their clinic to a 24-hour facility, the government should consider including at least houses in the package to address the current situation.

Another resident, Ms Mosa Tamapo said village had grown and hence needed another primary school or if not, the current school be expanded to accommodate the increasing number of students. 

Currently, she said the school has 800 students and most classes were crowded and this she said might affect the performance of the students as the teachers could not give full attention to slow learners in such situations.

Responding to the concerns, the area councilor Mr Keletso Amon explained that the government had on numerous occasions appealed to the public to assist with accommodation for the public servants.

He noted that the government had urged those with houses, which they could rent out to the officers to come forth and do so because currently the government alone could not afford to provide accommodation.

Cllr Amon further explained that the need for a new primary school as per the revised policy of education required that the number of students at the current school be about 889.

He said in their situation, this therefore meant they do not qualify for another school, adding the residents should have themselves to blame in that some parents transfered their children to other schools claiming they were in search for better education for their children, whereas their school had never performed below average. 

Cllr Amon noted that each term, the school experienced transfers of about 20 students and these were some of the factors, which led to a shortage of numbers.

MP Molao updated the residents that the government had decided that in the National Development Plan (NDP 11), the public service accommodation would be part of the major projects to be dealt with. 

He also explained that the government was making efforts to fight the import bill, particularly for food by making sure that through improved ISPAAD, the country produces enough food for the nation so that money, used to import food, could be diverted to other developments.

Mr Molao implored the residents to take up ISPAAD programmes despite the challenges of shortage of proper ploughing equipment and demands of upfront payments of fuels by the tractor owners. ENDS