11 May 2021

Member of Parliament for Bobonong says he is concerned by delayed payments to Ipelegeng beneficiaries.

MP Taolo Lucas said that delayed payments to beneficiaries of the programme impacted negatively on the home economies of his electorate.

He found that the P567 wage was eroded by prolonged waiting, since some beneficiaries got into debts while awaiting payments.

When responding to complaints on the matter at Mabolwe, Mr Lucas said that following complaints from beneficiaries across his jurisdiction, he met with Bobirwa Sub-district Council leadership to foster lasting solutions to the dogging problem.

“They learnt that the council had disbursed funds to the bank and the funds later reported back to the council coffers,” said MP Lucas, who informed his constituents that together with the council leadership, they pressed for expeditious resolution to the payments matter.

Since February, Bobirwa Sub-district Council started paying beneficiaries of Ipelegeng through Mascom My Zaka and Orange Money facilities.

Since the start of the arrangement, the beneficiaries reported delayed payments, which stretched to months on worst case scenarios, hence sought the intervention of the political leadership.

Mr Lucas appealed to sub- council leadership that going forward beneficiaries be paid in time. 

He accused the council of having violated their 10 days set service standards.

The Bobonong MP also found that members of village development committees also suffered a similar problem of delayed payments.

Mr Lucas was surprised that even though the VDCs had scheduled meetings, which meant anticipated payment of sitting allowances, members were still paid after protracted periods of inquiries.

“Upon inquiries into the delayed payments we found out that social and community development office accuses accounts office and vice versa,” said the MP.

The MP said that delayed payments bore heavily on the image of political leadership. 

In some instances, the electorate end up losing faith on MPs and councillors, Mr Lucas said.

He assured his electorate that his office would continue to intervene in ‘bread and butter issues’ of his electorate against accusations leveled against his office that he was interfering on small issues.

For his part, Ipelegeng coordinator, Mr Kagiso Tiego apologised for the delays in payments and informed residents of Mabolwe that effective May 10, beneficiaries would be paid.

He also was upbeat that by June the council would have resolved the technological glitches experienced between the council and the contracted companies of Mascom and Orange.

While resolving the matter, the Ipelegeng coordinator appealed to beneficiaries to register their cellphone numbers with their network providers to ease payments.

Some payments were declined because a beneficiary would have provided a cellphone number that is not theirs, Mr Tiego observed.

As amelioration to the challenges, Mr Tiego said that the council had engaged with Mascom and Orange Botswana to educate and register the beneficiaries. 

The coordinator also expressed shock upon hearing that the service providers charged beneficiaries for transacting, saying his understanding was that the council would bear the charges. 

However, he could not rule out possibilities that some beneficiaries could be going beyond the set transactions.

At the meeting, beneficiaries, through VDC, complained of delayed payments and that the service providers worsened their plight by imposing charges from what the ‘meagre pay’. Ends