09 Feb 2016

Francistown deserves to have a hospital that caters primarily for its residents, Member of Parliament (MP) for Francistown South, Mr Wynter Mmolotsi has said.

Responding to the budget speech on Monday, Mr Mmolotsi said Francistown had a big population with a referral hospital; Nyangabwe.
However, Nyangabwe catered for different areas of central and northern Botswana, which meant Francistown residents had to use a congested facility, according to Mr Mmolotsi.

On other issues, he said government needed to work on improving the salaries and conditions of service of the public service.

“I do believe that the finance minister, Mr Kenneth Matambo is being genuine about the bargaining council being the place where he expects civil service salaries to be negotiated.  But my plea is for government to use that instrument to improve the wages and work conditions of civil servants who are currently demotivated, because their salaries are being eroded by inflation,” Mr Mmolotsi said.

He added that government would lack the ‘moral authority’ to criticise the performance of civil servants if they were not motivated by better pay. Ngami MP, Mr Thato Kwerepe, said his constituency had been adversely affected by drought and thus urged government to assist farmers by drilling boreholes for their livestock to access water.

He added that some farmers had lost livestock due to transgressing the buffalo fence meant to curb the spread of foot and mouth, but the compensation was inadequate. Mr Kwerepe said he was baffled by reports in recent years that the Botswana Meat Commission (BMC) had been struggling.

“Botswana’s national cattle herd is more than the human population, and with effective management, the BMC should be doing well,” Mr Kwerepe said.
He further urged government to increase healthcare spending, with particular focus on primary healthcare.

“We have long been promised that the Sehithwa clinic would be upgraded and I urge government to make this a priority.  In order to ensure that funds are available for future projects, government needs to improve on the evaluation and supervision of projects to avoid cost overruns,” Mr Kwerepe said. Ends