01 Nov 2017

Minister of Employment, Labour Productivity and Skills Development, Mr Tshenolo Mabeo has cautioned officers against late payment of allowances to students.

Responding to complaints raised by Marobela residents during a kgotla meeting on Tuesday, Mr Mabeo said he was aware that some students were not receiving their allowances due to changes in methods of payment.

The residents had complained that most of the students of Marobela Brigade resided outside the campus as a result of shortage of accommodation and bad state of the boarding facility.

They said the students depended on the allowance for transportation and for rental.

Minister Mabeo said changes in payments started in March and so far eight months had elapsed, but still the issue had not been resolved, adding that the problem had also affected other programmes such as Tirelo Setshaba and Ipelegeng in some areas.

He said such changes should not be used as an excuse not to give people the needed services, as other alternatives could be used. These, he noted raised eyebrows as to whether officers were serving the people as per government mandate.

“Eight months is a long time in which everything could have been sorted out to meet the standards of payment to beneficiaries,” he said.

He urged officers to be accountable and serve the community diligently, adding that there had never been a month that passed without officers getting their monthly salaries.

Regarding the poor state of the brigade’s boarding facilities, he said the ministry had established a strategy to face-lift it to accommodate the new processes of rationalisation aimed at transforming the facilities into fully flashed vocational training centers.

Further, he said under the new ministry they had established an employment bureau unit, where unemployed people would register and have their numbers known together with skills they possessed.

He noted this would reduce people’s movement to the labour offices in search of employment.

One resident, Mr Mosupi Manewe suggested that government should dialogue with the private sector to consider making it a priority to employ Batswana graduates who are idling without employment.

He lamented that some companies still preferred expatriates over locals. BOPA