25 Aug 2016

Member of Parliament for Mmadinare, Mr Kefentse Mzwinila says his constituency like other 56 constituencies will receive some developments through the Economic Stimulus Programme (ESP) in the three years of the programme’s duration.

Mr Mzwinila said during a kgotla meeting at Tobane recently when responding to residents’ inquiries on whether the village will benefit from the programme like other areas in the country.

He said all 57 parliamentary constituencies in Botswana will benefit from the programme, but not all villages in the said constituencies will have an ESP project due to financial constraints the country is currently facing.

He explained that the budget for all developments needed in the country in all the 57 constituencies stood at P250 billion and currently the country’s coffers including funds in foreign reserves stood at P88 billion. He said this had led to prioritisation of project to be implemented under the ESP and NDP 11.

He told attendants that not all projects needed in the Mmadinare constituency would be implemented through the ESP but only those that had been prioritised. He said some of the projects included the expansion of the Mmadinare Hospital, including two health posts in the constituency to be determined by the Ministry of Health. He also indicated that the upgrading of three junior secondary schools, development of three primary schools and maintenance of all schools in the constituency would take place through the programme. He mentioned that the commencement of police station project in Mmadinare had also been earmarked to take place through the ESP.

Regarding Tobane village, Mr Mzwinila indicated that Motlhasedi junior secondary school will go through an expansion and have an extra four classrooms built at the school through the Economic Stimulus Programme (ESP). He said the Ministry of Education and Skills Development would be funding and coordinating the project through the ESP. He said maintenance of primary schools in the villages would also be done through ESP.

He mentioned that he was aware that Tobane Health Post needed to be upgraded and noted that he is still due to engage the Ministry of Health to find out if the health post would be upgraded through the ESP and if not, the health post will be included in NDP11.

He stated that government had setup special economic zones and the SPEDU region was counted among such economic zones. He said projects had been earmarked for the economic zones to bring about developments, diversify the economy of such zones or regions and create jobs. 

He said Talana farms were expected to hire around 2 000 people. He also mentioned that a pharmacy or pharmaceutal industry was in the process of being setup in Selebi Phikwe to also create employment for locals.

“So far around 3 000 jobs will be created through these projects setup in the region,” he said.

He said government was determined to resuscitate the economy of SPEDU region, create employment and reduce the region’s reliance on the BCL Mine which was the main economic contributor in the region.

He encouraged people to utilise government empowerment programmes to start viable projects that would also create jobs for others.

On other issues, Mr Mzwinila mentioned that parliament was due to engage in a process of making a decision on whether Botswana should host the International Criminal Court (ICC) branch in Africa. He said the United Nations had earlier on presented a proposal to African countries to host the ICC but none of the African countries showed interest. 

He mentioned that some countries in Africa especially those that had been experiencing instability, in-fights leading to innocent citizen being caught up in cross fire fights and end up being killed as well as countries with high corruption were against the idea of the ICC to have a branch in Africa.

He said due to this fact after all African countries failed to show interest to host the ICC branch in Africa, Botswana was approached to host the court due to its good track record of good governance, the respect of the rule law and democracy as well as for the fact that the country was  peaceful, stable and one of least corrupt countries in Africa. Ends