14 May 2020

Mahalapye Sub-district Council has so far, issued 14 449 households with food hampers, out of the 20 359 households recommended for COVID-19 food relief programme.

In an interview on May 14, sub-district chairperson, Mr Banthasetse Merementsi said the council had completed assessing a total of 24 796 households in all the 40 villages in the sub-district.

Out of the assessed households only 4 437 were not recommended.

“But, we are now experiencing a popping out of new figures of households, which have not been assessed, because they were skipped by social workers during assessment, since no one was found at their homes at thae time of assessment. We have gone back to assess them," he added.

Currently, Mr Merementsi said the council was also busy doing assessments in cattleposts and fields in the sub-district.

“We have 66 cattle posts and fields, where we have, so far, assessed 583 households, of which 455 households were recommended for food relief.

For the farms, we have so far assessed 63. So, we are now arranging for food hampers to be delivered to the recommended households in those areas," he said.

Mr Meremetsi also noted that he was recently made aware by Ministry of Presidential Affairs, Governance and Public Administration of a donation of 2 000 food hampers from the World Group of Companies to Mahalapye Sub-district Council.

“These 2 000 food hampers, we had been advised to divide them equitably amongst the four constituencies in our sub-district. So, 500 hampers would be issued to each of the four constituencies,” he explained.

However, due to shortage of transport, he said the council could not collect all the 2 000 food hampers from Gaborone, as they weigh a total of 45 tonnes.

Only 24 tonnes of the food hampers, he said, were collected on May 12, adding that the remaining 21 tonnes would be collected by May 14.

“We have already met and discussed with Members of Parliament for Shoshong, Mahalapye East and Mahalapye West and agreed with them on the modalities of how we are going to distribute these food hampers and which households will be targeted to benefit. Unfortunately, Sefhare/Ramokgonami MP did not make it for the meeting" he added.   ENDS