25 Jan 2016

Lepashe residents have decried lack of developments in their village.They said this during a kgotla meeting addressed by their MP, Mr Polson Majaga on Friday.

The residents noted that since they were far away from services, they seemed to be more disadvantaged because, although government had come up with different programmes aimed at developing Batswana, nothing tangible was taking place.

Lepashe Village Development Committee (VDC) chairperson, Ms Margret Setshwaelo, said many projects had failed because, despite communication to the sub-district in Tutume as their service provider, feedback and supply of necessary equipment and materials did not come on time.

She further stated that they had received communication that they would be receiving more police officers and so far they were in a dilemma about where they were going to accommodate them.

Ms Setshwaelo added that because of shortage of accommodation for public officers, many officers transferred to their village ended up not coming as result of the accommodation crisis.

Sharing similar sentiments was Kgosi Mmoloki Tshabisa who  said government programmes were not reaching them.

He highlighted that in programmes such as Livestock Management and Infrastructure Development (LIMID) and poverty eradication, many of the people who had applied for them had not received their responses.

Kgosi Tshabisa pointed out that on inquiring about the progress at the offices, they were informed that there was shortage of transport and staff to visit different places to give clarification on the delays or on what might the problem.

He thus proposed that because there was a Tirelo Sechaba programme, these young people should be engaged to visit their villages and dispense the necessary information regarding the programmes.

Nonetheless, he appealed to the government to consider through Economic Stimulus Programme (ESP) to have their road connecting them to either Mosetse or Matsitama to be tarred so that they could have easy access to other service centre for help.

Kgosi Tshabisa asserted that they were also of the assumption that officers were not coming to their village because of the bad status of their road, adding that during sports competitions, buses instead of coming to collect their children at the village rather stop at Mosetse village, which is almost 25 kilometers away and have them transported with small vehicles to the bus.

This, he said, did not sit well with them as their children are exposed to danger as they are often congested in the small vehicles.

In his response, Mr Majaga said he had made arrangements with the Assistant Minister of Local Government and Rural Development to visit them some time in the new financial year so that they could get first-hand information on projects progress and how they had already benefited and those on the waiting list.

Regarding the road request, he said it was one of the projects, which would be done through ESP, adding that he would also find out if their village will be among the villages, which will be electrified during the programme.

He nonetheless emphasised that they should understand that ESP is going to target mainly projects, which were shelved as a result of financial constraints dating back as far as 2008. Ends