22 Jan 2015

Legislators have agreed that the National Development Plan 11 that was scheduled to start in April 2016 be postponed to April 2017, according Mmadinare MP, Mr Kefentse Mzwnila.

Addressing a kgotla meeting in Mogapi recently, Mr Mzwinila explained that the reason behind the proposal was that as new parliamentarians, they did not have any input in NDP 11 draft plan, which was due to be approved and scheduled to start in April 2016 and end in 2019 when their parliamentary term ends.

He said  NDP 11 was drafted during the 10th Parliament when they were not MP’s. “This would mean that our parliamentary term would commence and elapse without our contribution towards NDP11 and we would be working or pioneering plans that were already in place that we did not have any input,” he said.

He said by extending NDP 10 to end in March 2017, would allow them to contribute towards NDP 11 so that between now and March 2017 they would be able to make contributions toward the NDP 11 draft plan which would start in April 2017 while they are still MP’s.

He also noted that they intended to include some of the things contained in their party manifesto’s in the 11th National Development Plan because they were campaigning and won elections using the items. 

“We made promises and pledges included in our manifestos to our constituents and we need them to be included in the NDP 11 draft plan so that we could fulfill what we promised our voters,” he said. On other issues, Mr Mzwinila said a supplementary budget of P2 billion had been approved after ministries submitted their requests.

He said out of the total supplementary budget, P410 million was to be allocated to the Ministry of Agriculture. He also noted that the Botswana Defence Force was to get P400 million to upgrade their equipment and the rest would be shared amongst other ministries.

Mr Mzwinila further said government had decided not to include Value Added Tax (VAT) on some food such as rice, samp, milk , bread, fruits and vegetables. He sad these were some of the staple food that Batswana live on nowadays and the food prices had been escalating resulting in Batswana feeling the pinch.He also said agricultural machinery such as tractors, planters would also be excluded from VAT.

Mr Mzwinila also touched on the issue of children being denied the right to get final exam certificate and have the opportunity to apply for further education because they owed money at the school.

He said children would be given certificates even if they owed money books so that they could continue with their education.He said instead, government had directed that schools arrange with parents to pay or find ways to make parents pay the owed money instead of holding children back from proceeding with their education.

Regarding the Bill brought before parliament regarding changing the registration and operations of churches to curb the ever increasing number of churches in which some were fake and only here to defraud people, residents of Mogapi said they supported government’s initiative to make churches to qualify for registration if they have 250 or more registered members. BOPA