14 Feb 2018

Mahalapye West MP, Mr Joseph Molefe has called on government to invest more money on solar energy generation to augment electricity provision around the country.

Commenting on the 2017/18 budget speech on Monday, the legislator said the ministry of Mineral Resources, Green Technology and Energy Security should be given more funds to intensify the programme of solar generation.

“Our country is vast and the electricity grid does not cover all parts of the country, therefore solar energy generation can assist to supply electricity to remote areas,” the Botswana Democratic Party  legislator said in Parliament.

Mr Molefe said government should make electricity accessible in every parts of the country because it helps to bring development and investment.  

He further said more funds should be made available to expand the Botswana’s railway network so that it reaches more parts of the country.

The legislator also said business reforms should focus at shortening the process of carrying out the Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) before projects get implemented. He said EIAs currently takes as long as four months to be completed which frustrate investors and they end up not investing in the country.

“It has an impact on investment and the process of conducting EIAs should be sped up,” he said.

Furthermore, he asked for the process of issuing of trade licenses and allocation of commercial land to investors to be quickened.

Concerning the education system, Mr Molefe complained that the high student -teacher ratio in government schools has contributed to poor examination results. He said the issue should be addressed by employing more teachers or assistant teachers.

Still on Monday, Tonota MP, Mr Thapelo Olopeng took a swipe at the Leader of Opposition for his response to the budget speech, suggesting that the ‘alternative budget’ presented by Mr Duma Boko was vague.

“I couldn’t find any budget submitted by him which could be regarded as alternative. He mentioned surprising stuff that they would employ 100 000 people and pay them a minimum of P3 000, but does not indicate how they will generate the around P3.6 billion that would be required to pay their salaries,” said Mr Olopeng, who is also the Minister of Youth, Sport and Culture.

The legislator further complained that implementation of government projects is being done at a slow pace, urging that the issue should be addressed by different ministries. He said more employment opportunities would be created if implementation is done quicker.

On the issue of Information Communications Technology (ICT), he said the broadband in Botswana is too small and must be increased because efficient ICT services make the economy to be competitive.

Meanwhile, Boteti West MP, Mr Slumber Tsogwane said the budget delivered by Minister of Finance and Economic Development was balanced and comprehensive. He said it touched on a lot of important issues such as figures indicating that there was a decline in abject poverty and unemployment.

He said he is happy with the Ipelegeng Programme and encouraged government to continue with it since it assists poor people with temporary relief from their hardship."It is a well thought out programme which has assisted a lot of our constituents," he said.

He also said the remote area development interventions such as the affirmative action policy have yielded positive results by assisting to integrate remote area dwellers into mainstream economic activities. Ends