27 Jun 2019

Farmers have been urged to fully utilise government livestock feeds subsidy.

Speaking during a Kgalagadi District full council session on June 26, council chairperson, Mr Meleko Thumpe, urged councillors to encourage farmers to take advantage of the government drought relief measures.

Government, he said, had increased livestock subsidy for feeds, vaccines and drugs from 25 per cent to 35 per cent. 

He added that the subsidy had been extended to dairy cattle, small scale piggery and poultry farmers.

In this regard, Mr Thumpe called for increased projects, policies and programmes monitoring and implementation, which he said must be examined with microscopic eye in order to move Kgalagadi District forward.

He added that it was pertinent for councillors and senior government officials to interrogate implementation progress of projects and programmes, thus the full council session giving them a platform to collectively come up with mitigation measures to achieve desired results for the region.

Mr Thumpe disclosed that Kgalagadi had been selected to host the national 2019 World Habitat commemoration. 

He added that the commemoration would provide an opportunity to dialogue on key human settlement issues and come up with concrete initiatives and strategies on shelter.

Kgalagadi District Council acting performance improvement coordinator, Ms Emily Oitsile, said 683 jobs had been created through various initiatives, adding that the Kang infrastructure project created more employment and 183 people had been hired either on permanent or temporary basis.

She said the poverty eradication brick moulding projects in Maubelo and Lehututu also created employment. 

She said the council was able to offer social protection services to 6 441 people living with disabilities, destitute, needy students and vulnerable members of the society in the first quarter of financial year 2019/2020.

So far, she stated that the council had expended 16 per cent of its budget in the first quarter which she noted was well within budget.

On education, she said, three primary schools provide special education to children and noted that there were resource constraints as they needed a specialised vehicle to effectively implement the programme.

Furthermore, Ms Otsile divulged that the council experienced high vacancy rate since there were 38 vacant posts where employees had been transferred and there were no replacements. 

Some, she said, took longer time to replace saying that for most, Kgalagadi was not lucrative for them.

For his part, Tsabong acting Water Utilities Corporation general manage, Mr Moses Dikgang, appraised councillors that there was scarce water in the region and the corporation had come up with projects to dig boreholes, clean and reticulate water in various places in the region.

He said the refurbishing of the Tsabong water plant was well on course which was planned to pump 120 000 liters per hour upgraded from pumping 80 000 liters per hour.

On media outreach in the region, Zutshwa/ Ukhwi councilor Mr Oatlhotse Mopolokang called for improvement of radio wavelength to reach areas without signals.

He said the Botswana DailyNews paper did not reach most remote areas in Kgalagadi and called for more to be done to ensure that people accessed information timely. Ends