16 Feb 2021

The national population and housing census had been postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Addressing the Tonota Sub-district Council on February 15, chairperson, Mr Chrisjan Machokoto said the census pilot activities had been postponed to mid-2021, due to current movement restrictions to control the spread of the pandemic.

He said the actual census would be conducted mid-2022 because of its importance to the country’s development and democracy. 

“I trust that you will participate and assist in ensuring that the census activities are conducted duly and effectively in our sub-district,” he added.

Mr Machokoto explained that the national Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE), Junior Certificate Examinations (JCE)  and Botswana Government Cambridge School Examination were all administered smoothly last year, revealing that PSLE results for Tonota were almost at par with last year’s. 

He said seven of the sub-region schools managed to reach the target of AB pass of 40 per cent, while 10 managed to hit the 80 per cent ABC pass. 

Mr Machokoto explained that the top three primary schools in the Tonota Sub-region were: Kgosi Sekoko with 98.5 per cent at position one, followed by Madisakwana with 95.5 per cent and Tonota Primary School with 94.3 per cent.

On JCE, he commended one pupil of Rutwang Junior Secondary School, Ernest Masiapeto, who defied all odds and scored a Merit.

He explained that Tonota sub- region attained an overall score of 35.48 per cent, which he said was not an impressive performance, which he attributed to a number of factors, chief among them being shortage of educational facilities, especially classrooms. 

He said the hardest hit schools were: Shashe Mooke, Borolong, Serule Moutlwatsi, Natale, Jamataka and Chadibe. 

“We have notified the relevant authorities of these challenges and we are hopeful that funds permitting, provision will be made in the subsequent years through the relevant programmes,” he added. 

He said another challenge was shortage of teachers, adding, however, that the problem would  be alleviated by the recruitment of temporary teachers. 

Regarding textbooks, Mr Machokoto said the Ministry of Basic Education ordered and distributed textbooks for primary and secondary schools, but there were still shortages across the streams as the budget allocation was inadequate.

He said the textbooks shortages was aggravated by failure by some parents to pay for or replace lost textbooks. 

The sub-council chairperson also briefed councillors on the Ipelegeng programme for the year 2020/21, which was allocated over P13 million. 

He said the council was implementing 64 projects, which include four maintenance projects, two fencing and maintenance of fences, three construction projects and 55 labour intensive projects. 

He added that all the technical projects were below five per cent and that the funding was received in quarter three, hence they were all at the take-off stage.

Councillor Machokoto explained that 2 012 beneficiaries were employed during December 2020, as per the monthly quota and that a cumulative number of 8 048 beneficiaries had been employed as at December 2020. 

He said the number included 5 628 females and 2 420 males with a total number of 1 884 youth engaged and 285 green scorpions employed.

He said the council was implementing different projects towards the reduction of poverty the sub-district under the poverty eradication initiative.  

He said the sub-district was allocated over P1 million at the start of 2020/2021 financial year to implement the programme and it had spent a total of P65 000 on local suppliers and over P43 000 on suppliers outside the sub-district. 

Councillor Machokoto said 4 688 persons were mobilised, out of which, 3 560 were assessed and 2 092 were found eligible. 

Further, he said a total of 1 768 projects had been funded, 1 369 of which were operational and 277 were non-operational while 122 projects had failed.

The chairperson said the current backlog stood at 268, who were mainly awaiting funding for small stock and Tswana chickens, while 10 projects were partially packaged awaiting veterinary requisites. Ends