14 Jun 2016

The Assistant Minister for Presidential Affairs and Public Administration, Mr Dikgang Makgalemele, has urged Ipelegeng workers to apply for other government programmes.

Addressing a kgotla meeting in Palapye recently, Mr Makgalemele said government wanted to see Ipelegeng workers obtaining life skills and knowledge to improve their livelihood. 

He said arrangements should be made to enable the workers to attend training sessions after work. 

By so doing, he added, they would play a significant role in employment creation and economic diversification. 

Mr Makgalemele advised the workers to have time for training sessions so that they could increase their knowledge, particularly business knowledge.  

He advised Village Development Committees (VDC) that they should not make Ipelegeng their full responsibility, rather they should take responsibility to organise training sessions for Ipelegeng workers and help in various job creation initiatives. 

The assistant minister also advised VDC to work hand and hand with the government to enable a better service delivery to the community.  

On poverty eradication, Mr Makgalemele informed the community that poverty eradication should not be the responsibility of government alone. 

He said poverty affected all Batswana either directly or indirectly, adding that some people were affected by poverty because they were poor, while some were affected because they were neighbours of families living under poverty.

The assistant minister said all Batswana should help the government to fight poverty, urging them to work together and build houses for poor people or lift them up from their poor economic conditions.    

Mr Makgalemele said the government was working hard to end poverty including the use of education as a tool to eradicate it. 

He urged parents to take part in their children’s education and Batswana to take programs initiated by the government to uplift their economic status seriously.

He added that people with disabilities, must live a normal life and should benefit from government programs like any other Motswana. Things should be made simple and easy for people with disabilities, he added.

 He said in a case whereby a person living with disability is competing for an opportunity with an able bodied person, priority should be given to a person living with disability. 

When people living with disability are employed under ipelegeng, they should be allowed to work until they find opportunities elsewhere or until they quit on their own.

He also said care givers of people with disabilities should benefit from government empowerment programs so that they could be able to take care of themselves and the person living with disability.

Mr Makgalemele said people with disabilities are given an allowance of P300. 

He however condemned care givers who misuse the funds for their personal gain. 

He also emphasised the importance of ten point agenda, saying it gives the people the formality of knowing who helped them, and also gives them power to assess those who helped them. ENDS