24 Jan 2017

Mmadinare MP, Mr Kefentse Mzwinila, has called for prioritisation of community based projects that will be funded through community development funds.

Mr Mzwinila made this call during a tour of his constituency that ended on Friday.

The Assistant Minster of Youth Empowerment, Sport and Culture Development wrapped up his constituency tour in Mogapi, Tshokwe, Mmadinare and Sefhophe.

He said members of parliament, village development committees, dikgosi, councillors in consultation with the community must work together and prioritise projects.

He explained that government had come up with the decision to award P10 million to each constituency until the National Development Plan 11 comes to an end in 2023.

He said the funds would be divided among the wards that fall under the constituency and each council ward would be funded with over P1 million to pursue community development projects. In this regard,

Mr Mzwinila urged the community and authorities to decide  on critical development projects.

He explained that after selecting the projects needed in the wards, the proposal would be forwarded to the council for approval before funds could be released.

He noted that the community based projects would not go under the tendering process, however, the youth and other community members or companies owned by residents in such wards could be engaged to pursue the projects.

He said the intitiative would empower residents.

He said projects such as construction of houses for civil servant in such wards, village kgotla, street lights, and houses for destitute and disabled, classrooms at schools in such communities among other projects could be built through the community development funds.

On other issues Mr Mzwinila explained that in its last session, Parliament passed NDP 11 where P311 billon would be needed for infrastructure developments and recurrent budgets from 2017 to 2023.

He said the total amount of P101 billion will be needed to finance infrastructure development projects while P210 billion will finance the running of government and public affairs.

However, he mentioned that government does not have enough funds to finance all the infrastructure developments based on the revenue it makes through its main income generating modems such as payment of individual and company taxes, mineral resource revenue, tourism,  Southern African Customs Union (SACU) and sale of beef to the European market.

He explained that the country will run on a deficit to finance projects in 2017/ 2018 financial year as well as the 2018/2019 financial year and will have to borrow funds to finance projects earmarked for the nation during the two financial years.

He indicated that according to government forecast the economy is expected to recover and have a balanced budget in 2020/ 2021 and 2021/2022 financial years.

However, he mentioned that this anticipated development in the economy is just a forecast and what is expected but things could turn around and not take place as anticipated.

He went on to state that in order for the economy to stay afloat and hope to recover from the deficit in future and in case the main contributors to the economy such as mineral resources, tourism, sale of beef to European market, SACU do not bring in expected income, government will have to consider introducing  cost sharing measures such as sharing costs with government to pay school fees, introducing toll gates along the Gaborone -Francistown road among other means.

He said cost sharing issue is just an idea and consultations will be made with Batswana. He explained that through cost sharing measures government will cushion uncertainties and setbacks experienced in the country’s economy.

He said funds raised through cost sharing could help weather through the difficulties experienced and also bring in new developments.BOPA