23 Sep 2015

The Head of Social and Community Development in the Chobe District Council Ms Membe Makonya says there is need to review eligibility guidelines for the poverty eradication programme.   

Ms Makonya was commenting during a consultative meeting addressed by the Assistant Minister for Presidential Affairs and Public Administration, Mr Philip Makgalemele in Kasane on Monday September 21.

She said while government was advocating for beneficiaries to form cooperatives to improve their marketability, in Chobe beneficiaries were reluctant to do so.   

“They insist on working from their homes as individuals, which makes no business sense because we end up having beneficiaries trading in the same small village and selling the same product,” she observed.   

In response, the assistant minister encouraged the officials to keep reminding beneficiaries of the need for them to work as a team and the benefits that come with it.   

Mr Makgalemele said one of his worries was that beneficiaries of the poverty eradication programme have to wait long to receive their supplies and funding.   

He advised the district to deal with the backlog of those who are waiting for funding and those awaiting training before assessing any new applications noting that in Chobe, 164 people were awaiting training while 159 were waiting for funding.   

“At least by the independence holidays, this entire backlog must have beeen dealt with,” the assistant minister engaged the officials.   

He explained that the government had set March 2017 as the deadline to have eradicated extreme poverty, adding that to date, they had identified 45 project ideas that people with abject poverty could take up.   “However as a district, you can identify ideas that are unique to your district and run with them,” he advised.   

He emphasized the need for each district to come up with their own strategy on how they would create employment and eradicate abject poverty. On people living with disabilities, the assistant minister advised that they should be given first priority when they have the required skills and experience.   

“You must also assess as to what extent people living with disabilities access programmes that are geared towards them,” he noted.   

When presenting a report on the status of the project rollout in the Chobe district, the Deputy Council Secretary (DCS) Mr Lesang Leloba noted that there was a high mortality of small stock due to Heart Water disease as stock is sourced from other districts outside Chobe.   

He noted that fish farming would do well in Chobe but people were more interested in just harvesting.    

“However, there is shortage of fishing grounds in the district despite increasing numbers of small scale fishing,” he noted.   

Another challenge that was put forward was that beneficiaries lacked operational space and to date, 23 projects have so far failed in the district.   

To solve some of these challenges, she said the district would conduct refresher courses, review eligibility criteria as well as encourage beneficiaries to go into fish farming.   

However, some of the councillors noted that while fish farming was commendable in the area, it was very costly and would need a lot of capital to get it off the ground. One solution that was suggested by councillor for Plateau, Mr Boitumelo Kanyetu was the use of open spaces in his ward to address the lack of operational space. Ends