19 Jan 2014

Tonota North MP, Mr Fidelis Molao has informed residents of Mathangwane in his constituency about some changes that are expected to affect them.

Addressing a kgotla meeting in the village on January 16, Mr Molao informed residents about the introduction of prepaid public standpipes, which he said was ongoing. He said the project, which was scheduled to be completed by April, would affect households which have no water standpipes. MP Molao said tokens would be issued to every such household for use in purchasing prepaid water; a move he said was adopted to help curb water wastage.

However, he said the exercise had for a long time proved to be a serious challenge. Furthermore, he appealed to those who would be found to be eligible for that programme to exercise restraint in their use of water as the country continued to experience serious water shortage. He said through the programme, there would be close monitoring of households’ use of water with the view to ensure that no household used potable water for watering livestock.

On another issue, MP Molao also informed residents that plans were underway to privatise the National Development Bank (NDB). That, he said would afford Batswana opportunity to own a stake in the bank, thus implored residents to wait in readiness to buy shares when such an exercise begun. He also urged them to change their mindset of believing that ownership of shares was the preserve of only the wealthy, arguing that a person of any financial standing could buy and own shares if they so wished.

Mr Molao also informed the meeting of the upcoming poverty eradication Pitso scheduled for Jamataka towards the end of next month. He urged Mathangwane residents to ensure that they fully benefitted from the event.

The Pitso, he said, was evidence of government’s commitment in helping less-privileged Batswana to break the poverty cycle, in the process helping to create jobs to address unemployment, which he stated was rife especially amongst the youth.

Furthermore, Mr Molao said government was indeed doing a lot in efforts to improve the lives of Batswana. He observed that the ongoing subsidies on livestock feeds as well as the many other programmes in place aimed at helping in various ways different sectors of the society to better their lives, were indicative of government’s commitment to improving the lives of Batswana.

On residents’ complaints that prices for purchase of smallstock for the LIMID programme remained below market rates, although they were recently hiked, MP Molao urged farmers that it was better to sell at those prices than to let their animals get wiped out by droughts.

He also noted that prices were set with the understanding that farmers would not be selling grown animals but those which beneficiaries would have to tend to until they were fully grown. Such, he said, would afford beneficiaries opportunity to raise their own animals instead of just receiving and re-selling them.

Responding to another complaint that schools were buying fresh farm produce from commercial farmers, MP Molao noted that subsistence farmers were partly to blame for the status quo. He said some of them hiked prices unnecessarily when doing business with government, while others were often not available to sell when schools needed to buy.

Thus, he appealed to them to be reasonable in their pricing, taking into consideration the quality of their produce. A resident, who is retired Botswana Defence Force (BDF) Brigadier Andrew Basupi had complained about what he termed the low prices set for buying smallstock, as well as the tendency by schools to overlook subsistence farmers when buying fresh farm produce for students. ENDS