08 Nov 2016

Leader of Opposition, Mr Duma Boko has called for equitable distribution of national resources.

Debating the draft NDP 11 in Parliament, Monday (November 7), he said equity was an important concept with regards to drafting of NDP 11 looking at prevailing levels of poverty in the country.

Mr Boko said the wealth of the country was enjoyed by a handful Batswana when the vast majority were living in abject poverty.

He further said failure to guarantee the poor protection as enshrined in the bill of rights to provide for them and grant them security, was violation of their rights.

“Poverty is a gross violation of human rights, it mocks the rights enshrined under the Bill of rights in the Constitution of this Republic,” he said.

Mr Boko said high levels of poverty and inequality of wealth and income that has ranked the country among unequal societies in the world must force legislators to reflect seriously on equity.

He further said NDP 11 should reach out to the lives of the employed destitute workers who earn less than enough to survive. “Their coverage is missing in NDP 11,” he said.

Mr Boko further said he expected the draft NDP 11 to have disaggregated data which speaks to the lived experience of people, gender issues, distribution of wealth by gender in relation to young people and those living with disabilities.

He said absence of aggregated data forced legislators to design targeted responses which he said was unconstitutional.

He called for research based interventions that are measurable over time.

MP for Mahalapye East, Ms Botlogile Tshireletso challenged legislators to continue striving to improve livelihoods of Batswana, as the country grapples with three main development challenges of poverty, unemployment and income inequalities.

“This is a challenge to every MP representing the people regardless of our political party affiliations,” she said.

Ms Tshireletso further called on legislators to promote other denominators that make up democracy, noting that participation of political parties in democracy was not good enough for the well being of a nation.

She further said non adherence to health issues by someexpecting mothers either due to limited health facilities or non-existence of certain policies should be looked into.

Ms Tshireletso said the country should provide health facilities that allow abortion of unwanted pregnancies, after thorough counselling of mothers.

“In the absence of laws and such facilities, the country will continue to grapple with maternal health related deaths,” she said. Ends