19 Mar 2023

Ministries have been encouraged to inculcate a culture of common understanding of not only the laws, but new policies among staff for effective implementation of such.

Responding to a question in Parliament recently, Minister for State President, Mr Kabo Morwaeng said such a culture would ensure that officers responsible for implementing the laws had full understanding of them.

“This will help them better explain such laws and policies to members of the public through various platforms such as the media, workshops and kgotla meetings. 

Cabinet members also continually use the constituency leave to address public officers at district level on the need to effectively implement new laws and policies for the betterment of the lives of Batswana,” Mr Morwaeng said.

He added that such engagements were also useful as they enabled appreciation of challenges experienced firsthand by those tasked with implementing the laws and policies, thereby making it easier to jointly devise solutions to emanating challenges.

“I also wish to place it on record that last year, Permanent Secretary to the President accompanied by her deputy and some permanent secretaries traversed the length and breadth of the country sensitising public officers across various districts on the new laws that were promulgated,” he said.

For monitoring purposes, he said all ministries had been advised to establish Ministerial Advisory Committees (MACs) which were chaired by ministers to monitor implementation of all policies, laws, projects and programmes.

He further explained that ministerial performance reviews were conducted annually to ensure that ministries were held accountable for delivery of those laws and policies under them.

Mr Morwaeng was responding to a question from Member of Parliament for Gaborone Central, Mr Tumisang Mangwegape-Healy, who wanted to know how government ensured implementation of new laws in a way that such implementation quickly filtered into the nation given the disconnect that usually existed after such laws had been passed. ends