22 Mar 2015

Ngamiland District Development Committee (DDC) members have been urged to drive the government policies and programmes to ensure they benefit the nation.

The newly appointed district commissioner, Ms Nkabo Kefhilwe said the policies and programmes are geared towards improving the livelihoods of the communities hence the need to ensure proper implementations.

She made appeal during DDC meeting when outlining her roadmap noting that it was disturbing to hear the communities complaining about poor implementation of government initiatives during President Lt Gen. Seretse Khama Ian Khama’s visit in the district.

She said as the district commissioner, her role is to coordinate all government activities through their support and ensure quality life for Batswana.

Ms Kefhilwe revealed that her role is aligned to Vision 2016 pillar which calls for prosperity for all by ensuring dignified lives for the people.

She appreciated that there are some challenges which hinders progress of programmes but called on DDC members to turn the challenges into opportunities.

“To perform my role effectively and efficiently I rely on your support hence you should get out of circle of problems and make sure Ngamiland community prosper,” she added.

The district commissioner called for teamwork to take the district to a higher level noting that there were issues of poor service delivery raised by the communities and advised members to prove otherwise.

She called them to come up with new strategies that could improve service delivery.

Ms Kefhilwe reminded them about the key thematic areas identified by the government for 2015/16 financial year.

The key thematic areas are as follows; growing the economy; promoting inclusive growth; enhancing business environment to promote investment and foster diversification and strengthening the judicial system and combating crime and corruption.

She said the thematic areas are critical in promoting growth and ensuring economic diversification and therefore assisting in efforts to create employment and improve on the general infrastructure, health and social development and fight against corruption and crime.

On other issues, reports from Maun Administrative Authority and Okavango Sub District indicated that the recurrence of Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) is affecting the roll out of small stock project due to movement restriction.
It was revealed that most applicants in the district want to venture into small stock projects but the progress is slow especially in the purchasing of small stock.

To address the situation, Okavango Sub District made a recommendation which sought for a waiver from relevant authorities to allow extension of loan repayment grace period for those youth that already have been funded under livestock projects until the FMD situation in the region stabilizes.

The district also requested that funding of livestock packages in the region be halted until such a time it is viewed profitable to engage in livestock projects. ENDS