07 Mar 2017

Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Mr Slumber Tsogwane has proposed P7 362 909 291 for the ministry’s budget for the 2017/18 financial year.
Presenting the budget proposals in Parliament, Mr Tsogwane proposed P5 624 898 080 and P1 738 011 211 for the recurrent and development budgets respectively.
Minister Tsogwane told parliament that the ministry had made some progress in its endeavour to improve the lives of Batswana.

He indicated that as at January this year, they supported 35 051 destitute persons, 108 160 Old Age Pensioners, 1 735 World War II dependents and Community Home Based Care patients, 5 691 People Living with Disabilities and 32 575 Orphans with cash allowance, food basket and shelter.

He added that the ministry also introduced an area-specific mini-food packages to assist people in Okavango with monthly packages targeting 4 300 families.
Minister Tsogwane said they also provided housing for the less privileged including through the Remote Area Development Programme (RADP).
“From a target of 1 000 units planned for the current financial year, 384 have been completed, 562 are at different stages of construction and 54 have not yet started due to land unavailability. The ongoing houses are expected to be completed by end of March 2017,” he said.

On Ipelegeng, he said during 2016/2017, the programme was also extended to the Ministry of Defence, Justice and Security in their initiative of debushing some international boundaries.
He said the programme targets to engage 64 191 beneficiaries per month or 770 292 per annum adding since April 2016, a cumulative total of 640 274 against a targeted 641 910 have been engaged.

Minister Tsogwane said out of the planned 2 689 projects, 2 621 had started and 502 were completed as at January this year.
On RADP, he said 1 029 students had been sponsored at tertiary education institutions, 267 jobs were created and 76 community economic empowerment projects were also established.
During the 2016/17 financial year, he said the ministry started construction of 30 customary courts across nine districts through the Economic Stimulus Programme (ESP), out of which 12 were complete while the remaining 18 were ongoing and expected to be completed by the end of the financial year 2016/2017.
For the 2017/18 financial year, he said a new programme would be introduced which would cover every constituency in the country in the form of constituency community projects and would increase delivery of projects at local level.

Further, Minister Tsogwane said the total funds for the programme amount to P57 million which translates to P10 million per constituency, adding “my ministry is currently developing guidelines to facilitate structured and better management of the programme.”
On infrastructure development, Mr Tsogwane said a total number of 151 classrooms, 680 toilet blocks and 423 teachers’ houses were planned to be constructed in 65 schools.
“To date, a total of 81 classrooms, 520 toilets cubicles and 329 teacher’s houses have been completed, the remaining facilities will be completed during the first quarter of 2017/2018,” he said.
He said following the introduction of ESP, significant progress had been made in stimulating local economies, enhancing job opportunities to both individuals and businesses.
The minister said for the 2016/2017 financial year under ESP, the target was 122 double classroom blocks, 475 toilets and 130 teachers’ quarters in 39 primary schools within 16 districts.

“Out of these, a total of 29 classrooms, 107 toilet cubicles and 27 teachers’ houses have been completed. The remaining facilities will be completed during the first quarter of 2017/2018,” he said.
Mr Tsogwane said the second phase of the ESP Primary School Backlog Eradication Programme would commence in the next financial year.
He said the ministry was aware of the need for new schools in some villages but were constrained by limited budget.

Parliament was informed that the ministry would deliver three infrastructure projects in Kang, Gabane and Tutume through ESP covering a total of about 80km.
Under the recurrent budget, the largest share of P4 056 334 310 will be allocated to Department of Local Government, Finance and Procurement Services, while Department of Social Protection will get the second largest share of P965 162 230.

The third largest share was proposed for Department of Tribal Administration and the remaining balance will be shared by five departments at Headquarters being Community Development, Local Governance and Development Planning, Rural Development and Local Government Technical Services.

On development budget, he said an amount of P1 738 011 211 will be shared amongst the ministry’s programmes such as Ipelegeng which will get P576 million, community projects will get P570 million, development of primary school education facilities P305 million, Local Government Infrastructure Investment and Services P174 million which will cater for three ESP projects at Gabane, Kang and Tutume internal roads and storm water drainage.
Other departments such as the Social Welfare and Development Programme will get P94 million from the budget, Tribal administration infrastructure development will get P15 million while RADP projects will get P1.8 million. ENDS