11 Feb 2018

Member of Parliament for Francistown South, Mr Wynter Mmolotsi has urged government to develop ways of addressing unemployment.

The opposition Alliance for Progressives (AP) MP said contrary to statistics from the budget speech to the effect that unemployment was decreasing, it was in fact causing a lot of hardships for young Batswana.

Debating the budget speech last Thursday, Mr Mmolotsi said interventions devised by government including Tirelo Sechaba, Graduate Internship Programme, the Youth Development Fund and others have failed to yield positive results as many graduates continued to roam the streets.

He added that the closure of BCL and Tati mines had compounded the situation.

Mr Mmolotsi said developing an incentive scheme for experienced civil servants to start their own businesses would help to open vacancies for fresh graduates in the civil service.

He added that it would lead to more successful local enterprises which would boost the economy.

He said it was not viable to expect fresh graduates to start their own enterprises because most of them lacked business experience.

He added that the lack of experience had resulted in the collapse of many business projects financed by the Youth Development Fund.

The MP further said government should spend more money on improving the primary health care system, and addressing the high ratio of students per teacher in government schools as well as improving the provision of teaching and learning materials.

He said the destitute policy should be amended to increase the threshold for assistance from P300 to at least P1 500. He said P300 was too low.

He further said salaries of civil servants should be increased because non-increment has contributed to a demotivated civil service.

The MP for Takatokwane, Mr Ngaka Ngaka asked government to improve the road network in the country to aid economic development. He added that his constituency still lacked good roads.

He asked for the construction of a road linking villages in his constituency.

“I don’t agree with the way we plan our roads. There is no how we can attract quality civil servants in our constituency when we still have poor roads,” he said.

Mr Ngaka also asked government to build a water treatment plant in the Takatokwane constituency to remove lime, which he said blocked water pipes leading to poor water reticulation.

“We have water in our area, but the problem is caused by the lack of a water treatment plant,” he said.

He also complained about the lack of a hospital in his constituency, saying it forced people to travel 200 kilometres to Scottish Livingston Hospital in Molepolole for medical services. Ends