15 Feb 2022

Kanye North residents are still waiting for a permanent water supply solution, provision of a hospital, construction of a clinic in Moshana and a primary school in Goora-Seno.

Debating the 2022/23 budget proposals in Parliament on Monday, the Kanye North legislator, Mr Thapelo Letsholo said other needs included the tarring of Magotlhwane-Tshwenyane road and maintenance of internal infrastructure.

MP Letsholo also appreciated this year’s budget, saying it was undertaken under difficult economic environment affected by COVID-19 pandemic.

He further noted that despite such circumstances, the country enjoyed favourable ratings and had been removed from grey listing by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

Mr Letsholo said he was happy that the A1 road from Ramatlabama to Ramokgwebana would be upgraded to dual carriage way and suggested that it be named after the country’s second president, Sir Ketumile Masire.

While he acknowledged the challenges the economy was facing, he said there was a likely over-emphasis on COVID-19 that runs across the budget strategy paper and the budget speech.

“This I believe is an over-inflation and speaks to inadequate research and data analysis by our own researchers, especially considering that even Botswana had one of the lowest infection rates in the world at less than 10 per cent and even lower death rate at about 0.1 per cent,” he said.

He said the real impact of the pandemic came from limited tourism and mining activities.

“We have been affected by the global response to COVID-19 which curtailed international travel and diamond demand,” he said adding this showed a narrow economic base.

Therefore, MP Letsholo said he supported the minister of finance when she talked about the need for deep structural reforms in her budget speech.

He said the economy was facing increasing demands putting pressure on the budget.

MP Letsholo said the country needed to introduce robust and innovative ways to increase revenue and to reduce the expenditure bill.

As a way to reduce government costs, he suggested that the executive use one vehicle instead of two and that they should not attend weddings or funerals using government vehicles.

“Naturally, this would also reduce overtime claimed by their drivers,” he said.

MP Letsholo also said government could avoid paying exorbitant costs for hotel accommodation for MPs if their houses and apartments could be maintained consistently.

He was also against further taxes and increase of user fees for government services, saying this had resulted with inflation rate outgrowing the 3-6 per cent Bank of Botswana objective to 8.7 per cent.

“So, government policies have resulted with government violating its policies. This is tragic,” he said.

He wondered why government waived its automatic 15 per cent stake in Lucara and Khoemecau mines although they were lucrative.

The Kanye North legislator further said government should reap rewards on infrastructure development, and said the road fees charged in the country were the lowest in the Southern African region.

He proposed that the department of roads be transformed into a parastatal similar to the one in South Africa where it was responsible for maintenance, management and development of the South African National road network.

MP Letsholo welcomed the signing of power generation agreements to be undertaken through Public Private Partnership (PPP) model.

He further called for the liberalization of the energy sector by enabling the private sector to participate in renewable energy.

The Okavango Diamond Company (ODC) has had a fantastic year with revenues about to surpass P10 billion and the MP said its allocation should be increased from 15 per cent.

He further said the government should set up its mining company outside De Beers. De Beers and the government had jointly formed the Debswana partnership. ENDs