07 Jul 2021

A review of scarce skills classifications is opportune because some positions might no longer be experiencing scarcity of potential employees or the market for certain areas are already saturated.

Presidential Affairs, Governance and Public Administration Assistant Minister, Mr Dumezweni Mthimkhulu said when responding to a question in Parliament on Tuesday that scarce skills allowance considerations were guided by the Attraction and Retention Policy for the Public Service (Public Service Management Directive No. 2 of 2008).

He explained that the policy’s main aim was to address identified problems hindering attraction and retention of appropriately qualified professionals required for public service positions.

He added that the scarce skills allowance also served to entice people with skills or qualifications for identified positions to avail themselves to perform functions of positions experiencing scarce human resources.

In that regard, he said professional qualifications for some positions currently classified as scarce skills category included medical doctors, engineers, dentists, architects, quantity surveyors, town and traffic planners, psychologists, pharmacists and pharmacy technicians, dieticians, chemists, architectural and engineering technicians, among others.

He said the list was not exhaustive while others were added by courts of law administrative reviews such as council secretaries.

Parliament also heard that there were no readily available figures of Batswana holding such qualifications who presently remained unemployed.

Mr Mthimkhulu was answering questions from Molepolole North MP, Mr Oabile Regoeng, who wanted to know which professional qualifications were currently classified as scarce skills.

Mr Regoeng also wanted to know how many Batswana holding such qualifications presently remained unemployed.

He also wanted to know if it was not opportune to revisit the scarce skills classification. ENDS