22 Feb 2022

Lentsweletau-Mmopane legislator, Ms Nnaniki Makwinja has appealed  Batswana to report corrupt practices to relevant authorities.

Debating the 2022/23 national budget proposals on Monday, Ms Makwinja said the government was concerned about high cases of corruption in the country and urged Batswana to combat it.

She further asked Batswana to always enquire about government projects, and not to rely on hearsay, saying the purchasing P58 million Tautona Lodge in Ghanzi followed proper channels of procurement.

On other issues, Ms  Makwinja said government, she said should look for alternative ways to undertake developments other than the Public Private Partnership (PPP) model.

She said government had invested a lot on PPP yet the results were minimal. saying that had not brought any res Regarding government rationalisation plan, she said she was in support of the plan saying there much talk and little action, and hoped that something would be done during the 2022/23 financial year. MP Makwinja said government should instead of raising service levies, should address inefficiencies  in government.

She commended Water Utilities Corporation (WUC) for ensuring her constituents were served with potable water despite the challenges they faced.

The Lentsweletau-Mmopane lawmaker said constituents looked forward to the next National Development Plan (NDP) with the hope that there would be developments in their area.

Ms Makwinja also said the Lentsweletau-Mmopane sub-district was also the least developed and has no developed internal roads, a senior or a unified secondary school.

For his part, MP for Nkange, Dr Never Tshabang decried poor project implementation and appealed to the finance minister to take action as this had resulted with projects being abandoned or completed after a long time with additional costs.

He said they had long heard that P520 million had been disbursed for construction of a hospital and they were still waiting.

Dr Tshabang further said they had been waiting for Tutume to be declared a fully fledged district and had hoped the budget speech would announce that.

He called for the release of the Presidential Cattle Rustling report, saying its recommendations would help curb cross border stock theft.

Dr Tshabang pointed out that government had promised to engage the Meat Regulator and reform the Botswana Meat Commission (BMC) but nothing had been done.

The Nkange MP also appealed to the finance minister to be cautious, noting that the high debt levels the country continued to accumulate to fund a budget deficit would in the long run be difficult to finance.

He said it was better if government could tighten its budget and reduce waste.

Meanwhile, Dr Tshabang said people should be allocated land to economically empower them and uplift their lives.

He further decried the poor project management, saying this was a main reason for project failure such as the Maitengwe-Tutume road. Ends