25 Mar 2018

An official at the Department of Gender Affairs, Ms Onneile Monna has told the District Development Committee (DDC) that 178 poverty eradication projects are operational in the district.

Giving a report of the Poverty Eradication Committee on March 21, Ms Monna, a senior gender officer at the department said while 309 projects were funded, 178 are operational, 43 are non-operational and 49 have failed.

She said of the operational projects, only 31 were excelling. Ms Monna explained that the Ministry of Agricultural Development and Food Security funded 163 projects but 21 failed. She said 12 small stock projects and nine Tswana chickens projects failed.

She said the department of gender affairs, wildlife and national Parks, forestry and range resources and the council’s social and community development each funded 70, 21, eight and 86 projects respectively.

She said 17 of the projects funded by Gender Affairs failed while the S &CD recorded 10 failed projects. The DWNP recorded zero failed projects while DFRR had only one failed project, she elaborated. She said the poverty eradication projects in the district were faced with challenges such as limited market, lack of operational space, lack of commitment from the beneficiaries and some projects not making enough revenue to sustain them.

On the challenge of operational space, Ms Monna said the implementing departments identified abandoned governed and community structures that could be refurbished and used by the beneficiaries.

Reporting for the District Economic Development Committee (DEDC), the council’s economic planner, Mr Otsile Mokae said since inception of the Youth Development Fund (YDF) in 2009, the Ministry of Youth Empowerment, Sport and Culture Development funded 77 project to the tune of over P7.5 million in the district.

Mr Mokae said of the funded projects 59 are operational and 18 have collapsed. He attributed the collapse to high rentals and lack of commitment from the beneficiaries. He highlighted that the poultry projects experienced expensive transportation leading to losses. He said the challenges faced by YDF include reluctance by youth to bring monthly reports and payback their loans.

He noted that MYSC targeted to collect P123 651 quarterly but has only collected slightly over P78 000 from April last year to March this year.

On the Economic Diversification Drive Mr Mokae said the central government departments used a total of over P4 million and half of the amount was used to procure from Chobe - based companies.

He said the Chobe Land Board used a total of P43 848.80 for Chobe based youth entrepreneurs in catering services and works between January and February.

Mr Mokae said of the challenges experienced with the district based companies was that the bidders bought tenders very late, late submissions with most of the documents not duly filled and non-compliant.

He said the other challenge was over pricing of items that led to non-award of tenders and under-pricing leading to high chances of not honouring the delivery period. ENDS