21 Feb 2018

Member of Parliament for Mahalapye East, Ms Botlogile Tshireletso says the bail system should be reviewed to help protect women from being raped and murdered by criminals on bail.

Commenting on the 2018/19 budget, she said the increasing incidents of women and girls getting raped and murdered by bailed out criminals had left women vulnerable.

The MP asked Parliament to help tackle the issue by amending the law to make it tougher for dangerous criminals to have their requests for bail approved.

She said two Mahalapye women were recently murdered by the same person, with the second murder happening when the alleged killer was serving bail for the first murder.

“Let us look closely at the law regulating who can get bail. When a person has committed murder it becomes easier for them to kill again,” Ms Tshireletso said.

She expressed concern at the frequency at which alleged murder accused were granted bail.

She called for alleged murderers to be remanded in custody until investigations were concluded.

Furthermore, she called for the law to recognise and protect the privacy of bi-sexual people in public schools and hospitals.

On gender issues, she raised concern at the allocation of funds for the gender affairs department.

She said the money had remained at P30 million for a long time and that it should be increased.

Ms Tshireletso, however, thanked government for the electrification of Mmaphashalala and the construction of a road between Dibete, Mookane and Machaneng in her constituency.

The legislator further expressed concern about this year’s Form Five results, saying they were shocking.

She said government should look closely at what changes needed to be made to improve the situation.

The MP for Tlokweng, Mr Masego Segokgo complained that there was nothing for his constituency in the budget.

He said he was expecting the sewerage system to be fixed in the village, and something on the storm water drainage.

“When you look at the 17 per cent developmental budget for land management, water and sanitation services, we expected something from there because definitely with the sewer system there is a big problem,” he said.

On sports development, he said more infrastructure should be built in strategic places around the country to harness sporting potential from people.

On education, he said the P7.97 million of the recurrent budget was not addressing the problem of poor results.

He urged government to look closely at what needed to be done to address the situation.

On health issues, he urged government to come up with new strategies to address the shortage of drugs in government hospitals.

He also said the issue of high maternal mortality rate and high infant mortality rate in government hospitals should be addressed as well. ENDS