10 Feb 2021

Parliament needs an appraisal on how previous development policies have performed before new ones are launched, Molepolole North Member of Parliament, Mr Oabile Regoeng has said.

Speaking in Parliament on Tuesday as part of the ongoing debate on the budget speech, Mr Regoeng said over the past decade there had been well intended policies pursued by the state whose progress had not been fully accounted to.

He said they include the Selebi Phikwe Economic Diversification Unit (SPEDU) which was tasked with overseeing the development of manufacturing and agri-business among other industries in the greater Selibe Phikwe region and the Economic Diversification Drive (EDD) among others.

Mr Regoeng said the plans, as well as the diamond and other mineral beneficiation schemes, had the potential to improve the country’s economic position and had to be pursued vigorously. He also added that Parliament had to be given feedback on their performance.

Mr Regoeng also said plans to restructure the country’s state owned enterprises was long overdue as some of them were underperforming and regularly had to be being bailed out by government.

He said government should speed up the process of merging parastatals of a similar function and privatising others in order to free up funds to be spent on national development projects

Regarding his constituency, Mr Regoeng said recent rains had caused damage to the Molepolole main road, a situation which he said needed to be attended to.

Mr Regoeng further lamented the situation at health facilities in Molepolole, stating that congestion in the hospital and clinics needed to be attended to.

He also called for an increase in the enrolment of nursing students at the Institute of Health Sciences (IHS) campuses countrywide. 

He said there was a sizable number of nurses retiring every year and that there was a need to augment their number by graduating larger numbers of trainee nurses.

Mr Regoeng said Molepolole IHS had state of the art infrastructure which was underutilised.ends