06 Jan 2016

Minister of Lands and Housing, Mr Prince Maele has implored residents of Seolwane and Mosweu to buy Botswana Telecommunications Corporations Limited (BTCL) shares, which will be sold from Monday January 11.

Addressing a kgotla meeting in the two villages , Mr Maele said they could spend a minimum of P1 000 to buy shares sold at P1 per share.

He said investing in shares is profitable, particularly that the Information and Communications Technology sector is growing at a fast pace.

He said government owns 51 per cent stake in the company while 49 per cent has been reserved for the public. He said buying shares could be done at any Barclays Bank, BotswanaPost office and BTC offices, as such, there is no need for residents to spend a lot of money travelling to Gaborone to buy shares.

On other issues, Mr Maele encouraged residents, particularly women, to take advantage of the women empowerment programme at the Department of Gender Affairs to start small businesses in order to rescue themselves from poverty. He said funding ranges from P100 000 to P500 000 and can benefit both individuals and groups.

Furthermore, he implored residents to test for HIV, adding that government had introduced a test and treat initiative, where those who test HIV positive are immediately enrolled in ARVs.

He said initially such people had to wait until their CD4 count was reduced for them to benefit from this programme.

However, he raised a concern on low condom use, saying that people were no longer doing their best to protect themselves from contracting HIV.

He also urged the youth to make use of target 20 000 initiative to upgrade their qualifications.

Mr Maele further raised a concern over poor performance by schools in his constituency.

For their part, the residents thanked their MP for updating them on developments in their area and for sharing information that is vital in improving their livelihood. Ends