26 Oct 2015

The Vice President (VP), Mr Mokgweetsi Masisi, has encouraged public officers in the districts to revive extension work services in order to assist communities beyond the call of duty.

Speaking during a kgotla meeting in Ralekgetho recently, Mr Masisi said the village was faced with a development challenge, characterised by a high number of youth involved in criminal activities and school children either dropping out or failing dismally at school. 

Mr Masisi, also Member of Parliament(MP) for the Moshupa/Manyana constituency, said part of the problem was that some public officers in the districts had abandoned the extension work services, a model of development, which earned the country praise across the world.

“We have better resources and better educated officers now than when we started 49 years ago, but you don’t want to work for the community. 

How can you stay here three, four years doing nothing to benefit the community other than what you get paid for? 

We need a serious intervention from you,”he said.

Mr Masisi, also coordinator of the national job creation drive, thus challenged officers to use the skills, expertise and talents they had such as coaching, counselling and mentoring to reach out and steer young people away from criminal tendencies and help them take advantage of the available government programmes to improve their lives.

He expressed concern that only a small fraction of the youth in the village was involved in economic activities. Mr Masisi further urged public officers to use the positions they had to better the lives of other Batswana. He raised concern that some officers abused office to disadvantage other Batswana.

On other issues, the VP urged residents to survey their plots through the Land Administration Procedures Capacity and Systems (LAPCAS) programme for free.

He explained that the LAPCAS certificates had value and they could be used to source loans from banks. 

He said if all land owners were required to survey their plots with the assistance of private entities, the total money spent would have come in the region of P1 billion.

Meanwhile, officer commanding district N0:14 senior supt Reuben Mphoeng also confirmed that criminal statistics for Ralekgetho were a cause for concern. He said three police officers would be deployed to the village to beef up security in due course. Ends