25 Jan 2016

Poverty eradication projects and other businesses could create employment and help curb absolute poverty.

The Assistant Minister for Presidential Affairs and Public Administration, Mr Dikgang Makgalemele, said this during his tour of Mahalapye water treatment plant and the planned grey water project for poverty eradication projects as well as Lupro Pure Sunflower Cooking Oil plant in Mahalapye recently.

Mr Makgalemele said business enterprises could do more for the communities if they liaised with each other and government.

He noted that if the sub-district leadership could also help by creating opportunities for these to grow and also guide them to access market the possibility of them growing into bigger and better businesses could be high.

He said government wanted businesses that could grow, diversify the economy and also help the government in any possible way to help eradicate poverty and empower people.

Before the tour, Mr Makgalemele also wanted to know what the sub-district had done on possible support for women graduate from Poloka and Mokgenene who underwent training on rural solar power generation in India.

Mr Makgalemele also wanted to know to what extent the sub-district could provide support to Mahalapye Lupro Pure Sunflower Cooking Oil project.

When briefing the assistant minister, Mahalapye senior district development officer, Ms Tlhalefo Motswagole, said the district leadership wishefd the assistant minister could lobby government to decentralise procurement of food commodities being bought centrally such as sunflower oil.

Ms Motswagole said a deliberate move be made of offering Lupro a certain portion of supply in Mahalapye and as a waiver be given a grace period to acquire the BOBS certification.

She noted that this should be done under careful monitoring and constant testing of the samples with relevant entities.

On the possible support for women graduate from Poloka and Mokgenene, Ms Motswagole explained that the principal economist and assistant council secretary were tasked to investigate on the specific assistance that the women would require and it came out that they needed an operating space or workshop.

However, she said follow up questions and further details on the type of workshop and specifications of the workshop could not be addressed by the beneficiaries and the leadership saw it fit to refer the matter to a subcommittee known as the sub District Economic Development Committee.

 For his part, project engineer for the Mahalapye water treatment plant, Mr Tshupoeng Gwamulumba, said the Department of Water Affairs was working on the recovery and storage of waste from Mahalapye evaporation ponds for the utilisation on crop production.

Mr Gwamulumba said the project was necessitated by the government’s poverty eradication drive having realised that most water was going to waste while communities could find better use of it.

He explained that the whole project was anticipated to take 15 months for all the components, and Office of the President availed funds last year July amounting to P15 million.

He said tenders have been awarded to the contractor Matd (Pty) Ltd in August 2015 and at the moment all procedures are being followed for them to commence work while waiting Environmental Impact Assessment scoping.

However, he said at the moment archeological work has started which is part of EIA since it does not need approval by the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA). Ends