13 Apr 2022

Acute shortage of social welfare officers affects service delivery in district councils.

Parliamentary portfolio committee on local government and social welfare chairperson, Mr Sam Brooks revealed this on Tuesday when presenting the committee’s report on the findings from the social welfare consultative tour held last year.

Mr Brooks pointed that the shortage also affected negatively psychosocial services.

He explained that a key finding from visits made by the committee to district councils last year, indicated that psychosocial cases were not being effectively addressed due to the shortage of social welfare officers.

“The committee has noted with concern the high number vacant posts across the district councils. Almost all councils are headed by officers in acting positions, some of which have been in those acting positions for more than a year.

This thing itself negatively affects service delivery,” he said.

Mr Brooks further explained that the committee visited five district councils to appreciate service delivery, engage with service providers and beneficiaries, as well as to get first-hand experience on services and programmes offered to people.

He said another key finding from the visits was that most destitute persons were not graduating from government programmes but remained dependent on government for almost their whole lives.

“There is a high dependence on welfare programmes and this makes it hard to break the vicious cycle of poverty.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed us to the harsh reality that our people survive in a hand to mouth system which is not sustainable.

Government should therefore intensify programmes geared towards mindset change amongst the temporary registered destitute persons,” Mr Brooks said.

Consequently, he said the committee was recommending that government gravitated towards empowerment programmes as opposed to hand outs.

Mr Brooks said the committee was also recommending that district councils should maximise potential revenue collection instead of relying heavily subventions from central government.

He also commended the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development for developing a single social register for social protection programs under the ministry. He said such would make it easy to gravitate towards empowerment programmes rather than hand outs.

Commenting on the report, Maun East MP, Mr Goretetse Kekgonegile asked for review of social protection policies, including the threshold for destitution.

Mr Kekgonegile said realities of life had changed from the time the policies were made. He further said the ratio of social welfare officers to clients should be looked at.

Shashe West MP, Mr Fidelis Molao asked for speedy implementation of the decentralisation programme as well as creation of new districts to bring services closer to people.

“Tutume should become a fully-fledged district, and Sebina should be made a sub-district. We also want to see the number of service centres increased around the country,” said the MP.

Mochudi East MP, Mr Mabuse Pule commended government for implementation of various social protection and empowerment programmes.

Mr Pule said the programmes had eased hardships of life on beneficiaries and assisted some of them to uplift their livelihoods.

Sefhare/Ramokgonami MP, Dr Kesitegile Gobotswang urged government to increase the Old Age Pension to P1 500 due to high cost of living.

Bobonong MP, Mr Taolo Lucas on the other hand asked for increase of the destitute allowance and the Ipelegeng programme wages.

He further asked for review of the destitute policy. ENDS