09 Feb 2015

Assistant Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Ms Botlogile Tshireletso, has raised a concern over delays in completing Rural Area Development Programme (RADP) projects, despite the availability of funds.

Speaking at the district consultative forum recently, Ms Tshireletso said such delays had potential to stagnate rural development envisaged to improve lives of rural communities.

“Some of these projects are very small and they are not supposed to take that long to complete. The P140 000 community bakery project in Loologane settlement was not supposed to take two financial years to do. The bakery I am told got damaged before it was handed to the intended beneficiaries,” she said.

She said projects such as RADP houses were lagging behind, notwithstanding that government had advised that graduates from brigades and technical colleges be engaged to speed up completion of houses and also spread government resources to a wider sector of the society.

She also reiterated government’s commitment towards empowering communities through various programmes.

The assistant minister said that could only be achieved if all stakeholders embrace the affirmative action by providing the   disadvantaged communities social treatment in education, employment and access to youth and economic empowerment schemes.

She encouraged councils and district commissioners to always consult government departments and private sector, to emphasise the need to apply affirmative action and bridge the gap between the mainstream society and disadvantaged minority communities.

Ms Tshireletso said unskilled labourers need to be absorbed during the hiring of assistants for measuring fields.

She said when she assumed office, her priority was to ensure that communities remote from mainstream development access government programmes, adding that she becomes worried when such communities do not enjoy government services.

The assistant minister said such communities were disadvantaged because government developments were population size based.

She noted that such communities were scattered in unrecognised areas and few in numbers which meant that they were not going to enjoy national developments unless they relocated, hence disrupting their normal way of life which could result in them losing their distinct cultural identity.

For his part, Kweneng District Council Secretary Mr Wazha Tema said slow delivery could be attributed to staff shortage especially social workers for timely assessment of beneficiaries and if funds permitted each settlement would have own social worker to do closer assistance and monitoring.

He said as council they were aware of their role in developing rural areas, adding that so far about P3.1 million had been spent and were working on ways to improve injection of funding by increasing wider coverage of settlements.

Mr Tema said they have assisted Kaudwane cooperative business to secure a P1.2 million tender to serve food hampers to destitute persons and orphans in the nearby settlements, protected from other competitors.

He said the district was committed to reviewing business plans so as to expand markets, find ways to plough back profits from Cooperatives and empower tailors not to only rely on selling uniform, but to diversify into other markets by increasing production base of their businesses.

Other impediments to implementation of Poverty Eradication were slow delivery of materials by contractors and suppliers to government, he said. ENDS