04 Oct 2023

Bobirwa District Council should find ways to economically empower the people of Lepokole to enable them to come up with income generating and employment creating projectsl Assistant Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Ms Talita Monnakgotla made the call during kgotla meeting at Lepokole recently. 

“More needs to be done to empower the community of Lepokole economically… Through such projects, the community should also be able to benefit from government programmes by supplying food and toiletries to less privileged families and orphans as well as supplying eggs and bread to Lepokole primary school,” Ms Monnakgotla said. 

She also said tuckshops in the village should also be assisted to apply for the Point of Sale (POS) machine to enable beneficiaries to use their cards to buy food in Lepokole instead of travelling to Bobonong and Selebi Phikwe, adding that doing so empowered other communities. 

Ms Monnakgotla urged the Department of Social and Community Development to engage Local Enterprise Authority (LEA) and Citizen Entrepreneurial Development Agency (CEDA) to assist them to capacitate the community with skills to start and run sustainable businesses. 

“Empowering people with knowledge would go a long way in transforming their lives. Even those benefiting from the food basket should be empowered to graduate from the food basket programme,” she said. 

Furthermore, she said, school uniform should also be supplied by tailors from Lepokole instead of suppliers from elsewhere. For her part, Department of Community Development acting director, Ms Delic Sehunwe said Lepokole was one of the 72 settlements declared Rural Area Dwellers communities. Ms Sehunwe said government had realised that the majority of such settlements and other villages depended mainly on Ipelegeng programme as a source of employment thus its decision to increase the number of people employed under the programme. 

Be that as it may, she encoureaged community projects as a source of employment for rural area dwellers, and urged community development officers to do their best to help communities to start sustainable projects that could help improve their livelihoods. 

She said the government was looking into reviewing destitute policy to make it relevant. Ms Sehunwe thanked FMK Trust chairperson, Mr Francisco Kgoboko for pledging to sponsor this year’s Miss RADP. She urged the youth to take part in the pageant and desist from binge drinking and smoking. Principal social welfare officer, Mr Molatedi Monthe reiterated that access to government programmes was not enough because there was only one operating shop with a POS machine, making it the only one benefiting from the food basket programme. Mr Monthe said other tuckshops did not have the required machine and did not have enough stock to cater for beneficiaries, which compelled them to buy groceries and toiletries in Bobonong and Selebi Phikwe where prices were lower. 

He said Lepokole had 35 people benefiting from the food basket as well as 10 orphans who were assisted with school uniform, food basket and toiletries, adding the food basket was P550 per beneficiary. 

Regarding school uniform, he said there were no tailors in Lepokole thus they engaged those from other villages. 

For their part Lepokole residents commended Ms Monnakgotla for resolving the issues they had with the council with regard to benefiting from government programmes, saying that they had been complaining that locals were disadvantaged. Residents appreciated the effort to capacitate them and said they looked forward to attending workshops on business management to prepare them for supplying the government with goods and sevices. 

They also thanked Mr Kgoboko pledging to sponsor Miss RADP which will be held in the district later this year. ENDS