04 Dec 2019

 Government’s recognition of agriculture as a source of economic diversification is a well-placed strategic decision, says Mmathethe-Molapowabojang Member of Parliament, Dr Edwin Dikoloti.

Debating the State-of-the-Nation Address, Dr Dikoloti, who is also Minister of Agricultural Development and Food Security, said prioritising agriculture would help to unlock the much-needed jobs, reduce the import bill and attain food security.

 He said his ministry was well aware of the estimated P7 billion used on the importation of  cereals, fruits, livestock products and vegetables that had created jobs for other nations.

“Under the Agriculture Infrastructure Development Initiative (ADI), the Ministry of Agricultural Development and Food Security is committed to ensuring the realisation of outstanding investment in agriculture and its commercialisation to bring about sustainability in the sector,” he said.Dr Dikoloti indicated that government had through some collaboration with desert-dry Israel identified that sustainable intensification of climate-smart agriculture technologies could yield high-level production and output

He said there was a need for Botswana to learn from other countries with similar climatic conditions as well as to enter into collaborations with regional and international agencies such as the Food Agriculture Organisation (FAO). He said such countries had upgraded their status to a level of the partnership beyond technical assistance and donor funding.

 He noted that agriculture was dependant on land, water and enabling infrastructure which, he said, needed to be prioritised if the sector was to be seen as a green revolution that would turn around the lives of people.

Furthermore, he said it was highly commendable that there were some deliberate strategies to facilitate the establishment of new businesses as well as to attract skills and human resources necessary for the growth of locally founded business establishments.

 He said the facilitation of business should be more inclined towards taxation laws, as the current setup did not fully support the growth of emerging businesses with a fragile capital base.

 “Our VAT law requires that one should submit and pay their returns against tax invoices raised or payment received, whichever comes first, and the greatest challenge with this law is that we have many cases of delayed payments or even dishonoured payments,” he said.

He also called on Batswana to partake in the country’s fourth industrial revolution drive, adding that the revolution and economic set-up required citizens to be highly innovative to create sustainable jobs from their innovations and knowledge.

He said the manufacturing industry remained a sector with a lot of potential to create jobs for Batswana and to create alternative avenues of growth using both highly skilled labour and the unskilled.

He emphasised the need to develop policies and programmes geared towards job creation and industrialisation agenda of the country in automotive parts manufacturing.

Dr Dikoloti said his constituency was in need of a senior secondary school, especially Mmathethe, as government rolls the outcome based education system. 

He said young people must be slotted into different value chain models for them to suit the knowledge-based economy model.BOPA