21 Jun 2017

The youth in Okavango have been encouraged to utilise funding schemes available in the country to see themselves out of poverty.

Addressing kgotla meetings in Seronga and Mokgacha respectively, Member of Parliament for Okavango, Mr Bagalatia Arone emphasised the need for people to take advantage of schemes such as Youth Development Fund, Women Economic Empowerment Fund and CEDA.

Mr Arone said there were a lot of projects that could come out of the area, citing lodging as an example of a business that the youth could venture into, since Okavango is a tourist attraction area.

As the area MP, he said he was concerned about the well-being of the people, and as such he wanted to see the lives of Okavango people changing for the better through uptake of poverty eradication programmes availed by the government.

He said government’s efforts to uplift the lives of Batswana were evident, given the availability of poverty eradication programmes, and therefore people should stand up and utilise such programmes.

The MP however was not happy with the culture of people who would just stay home and ignore government programmes on poverty and complain about unemployment.

Furthermore, Mr Arone advised residents to always seek assistance from civil servants or even from the office of the MP whenever they had difficulties in filling the forms when applying for any funding.

Meanwhile, residents of both Seronga and Mokgacha had a common grievance about wht they say was unsatisfactory services by the Seronga sub-land board and the Department of Wildlife and National Parks.

Many of the youth who spoke complained about the turnaround time by the land board when they applied for business plots, saying that it took a long time for one to be allocated land.

Such delays, the youth said were some of the factors that made them give up and lose hope in opportunities and programmes availed by government to take them out of poverty.

In response, vice chairperson of Seronga sub-land board, Mr Mmoloki Maropamabi said allocation of land to aspiring entrepreneurs was a special case.

He said what they wanted as land board was for the aspirant to produce proof of funding, and that they would take only two weeks to allocate the land.

As for the wildlife and national parks department, farmers decried the delay for compensation when wild animals, particularly elephants had destroyed their crops.

Some farmers had cases dating as far back as 2014 and had not been compensated yet, and they felt the department was not doing enough to assist them.

Meanwhile, principal wildlife warden, Mr Obirt Rantlole said the Wildlife and National Parks department was committed to assisting the aggrieved farmers in any manner.

He noted that for the past years, the department had not been allocated enough funds used to compensate farmers for the damage caused by wild animals.

Mr Rantlole however noted that for the 2016/17 financial year the department has been given P4 million for compensations, and that they had already started paying people and more continued to be paid.

Another challenge that Mr Rantlole said was a hindrance in timely attending to reported incidents was shortage vehicles at the department. 

On a similar issue, Mr Rantlole told residents that as of July 1, 2015, government had resolved that a sum of P70 000 would be given to families whose members’ death was caused by dangerous wild animals such as lion, elephant, buffalo and cheetah.BOPA