22 Jul 2018

Civil servants have been urged to be innovative in the workplace.

Addressing heads of department for both local and central government in the Bobirwa Sub-district recently, Member of Parliament for Bobonong, Mr Shaw Kgathi said the majority of bureaucracies in various ministries were “manufactured not by government but some officers who spend much time explaining bureaucratic and red tape tendencies.”

Government, he said, did not promote bureaucratic tendencies because they impeded delivery of services.

He urged officers to list all guidelines and procedures that seemed to delay the timely and efficient delivery of programmes and services to the people to their supervisors for consideration.

Mr Kgathi, who also Minister for Defence, Justice and Security, urged officers not to work in silos.

He said heads of department must have information about what was happening in the constituency and be able to address operational issues immediately.

He said many social upliftment programmes such as paying of suppliers and beneficiaries, were at times delayed, with officers blaming the delays on the Government Accounting and Budget System, which the end users have no interest in.

Officers were also advised to utilise the funds allocated to the constituency and ensure that projects were monitored, completed and handed over on time.

Mr Kgathi urged public officers to display leadership qualities at all times and advised them to conduct mystery shopping in all government institutions to detect irregularities.

He said patients’ complaints of poor service delivery needed to be looked into.

Nonetheless, he commended officers for their commitment to develop the area, highlighting that there were many success stories in the Bobonong constituency, owing to the persistent and diligent work of civil servants.

The MP said there were challenges caused by wildlife, especially elephants that continued to destroy farmers’ crops, thereby leading people into poverty.

He urged the wildlife department and other departments to attend to the issue of as a team.

He said President Mokgweetsi Masisi had ordered that problem animal issues be looked into in a swift manner, in line with expectations of Batswana and CITES.

For his part, Bobirwa Sub-district economic planner, Mr Kefentse Mhaladi said they were implementing 62 projects, 12 of which deal with construction, which were purely labour intensive.

He said the programme had employed 5 871 beneficiaries since April 2018, further adding that 2 240 youths participated in the programme of which 1 468 were females while 772 were males.

On the water situation, Mr Mhaladi said the Thune Dam water treatment plant was currently supplying portable water to Mathathane and Tsetsebye, while supply to Bobonong and Molalatau was expected end of this month. ENDS