05 Feb 2015

Tati East, MP Mr Samson Guma has challenged Parliament to find solutions to challenges facing the economy so that the country can move forward. 

Debating the 2015/16 budget in Parliament on February 4, he said those challenges included rising unemployment statistics, low salaries in the civil service and poor working conditions for workers.

The ruling Botswana Democratic Party legislator pointed that it would be difficult to grow the economy if these issues remained unaddressed.  Mr Guma said if government failed to grow the economy and create more employment opportunities during its current term in office, the situation will lead to more problems.

“The biggest challenge we face in this country is economic growth. We have a challenge all of us to talk about ways of growing this economy. We are sitting on a time bomb and should talk about these things unapologetically,” said Mr Guma, who pointed that he was happy with the budget proposed by the minister of Finance and Development Planning, Mr Kenneth Matambo on Monday, February 2.

The legislator said the salaries of civil servants are low and contribute to low morale and unproductivity in the civil service. “They find it difficult to build houses for themselves from their salaries,” he said.

He also said the working conditions in some cases are poor in this country, and challenged MPs to embrace the opportunity they have been given to make sure that these issues are improved.

Another MP who expressed satisfaction at the budget was Mr Liakat Kablay of Letlhakeng-Lephepe who said even though some usually complain about the way government budgets, it should be understood that government has a duty to prudently manage resources rather than rushing to impress people.

“If government were to try and satisfy everyone by implementing every project the public asks for, then the economy will go bankrupt,” he said. Mr Kablay however expressed disappointment that there was no budget allocation for construction of a hospital in Letlhakeng village in his constituency. 

He complained that villages in his constituency were lagging behind in terms infrastructural development, urging government to consider budgeting for more tarred roads to link villages in the constituency.He also said he was unhappy that construction of Letlhakeng internal roads seemed to have stalled, alleging poor workmanship by the contractor.

The MP complained that poverty was still rife in his constituency despite government having established the poverty eradication programme.

“People were promised things that would uplift them from poverty but nothing has been done so far, and poverty has increased in my constituency,” he said.

Mr Kablay also asked government to develop a policy where top civil servants should be card-carrying members of a ruling party. Arguing his proposal, he said the senior civil servants sympathetic to opposition parties have tendencies of deliberately frustrating implementation of projects to cause the public to lose confidence on government.

He said in some cases monies meant for projects implementation were being deliberately returned to the ministry of Finance and Development Planning without the projects being completed.

The MP for Maun West Mr Tawana Moremi said he did not support the budget proposed by the minister of finance.

In response to minister Matambo’s call for improvement on project implementation, Mr Moremi accused government of repeatedly calling for improvement, yet for a long time things have remained the same.

He also said the call by minister Matambo to improve performance of public enterprises will be difficult to achieve while there was no legislation that prevents conflict of interest in those enterprises.

“We should put legislation in place that prevents conflict of interest, a law on declaration of asserts, and another one on whistle blowing to put in place an enabling environment for our public enterprises to operate efficiently,” Mr Moremi said. ENDS