11 Feb 2014

Member of Parliament for Lobatse, Mr Nehemiah Modubule has said government needs to find alternative sources of revenue rather than depending on diamonds as they are susceptible to international shocks.

Debating the 2014/15 national budget proposals, Mr Modubule said it could also be detrimental if South Africa pulled out of Southern African Customs Union (SACU) as revenue accrued from the organisation also played a major role in the economy of Botswana. 

MP Modubule said the budget was silent on employment creation and economic growth. He said he expected the Minister of Finance and Development Planning to update the nation on the level of unemployment in the country.

He said government no longer created employment but rather engaged youth in national internship programmes and Tirelo Setshaba which he said was exploitation.

The Lobatse legislator said the P580 million allocated to the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development for Ipelegeng was more than enough to develop a leather park in Lobatse where permanent jobs would be created.

About ipelegeng, he said people talk highly of the programme because they did not have an alternative source of income. MP Modubule said government had realised that it could not totally eradicate poverty hence now the talk was about poverty alleviation as some people were said to be living in abject poverty.

On Morupule B, he called upon the Minister of Minerals, Energy and Water Resources to update Parliament about progress at the 600 MW Power Station as the nation continued to experience load shedding due to power shortages.

He said government should be looking at expanding the horizons of parastatals ear marked for privatisation. MP Modubule said  government was not taking care of its employees who were driving developments and delivering services to members of the public.

He said Botswana was experiencing shortage of water but nothing had been done to harvest rain water saying water over flowing from other dams should be channelled to others.

MP Modubule said housing was faced with disaster as people waited for many years to be allocated plots adding in Lobatse although government bought nearby farms, the land had not yet been serviced.

The Lobatse legislator said poor school results emanated from the classroom environment because some students were taught under trees and hence the need to reduce the student-teacher ratio.

He said the automatic promotion from Standard 7 to Form 1 was also to blame for poor JC results adding students should be taught in their languages especially at lower levels saying this would also preserve culture.

On agriculture, he said the sector, if properly developed, could create more employment saying it was disheartening that even many years after independence; Botswana was still importing a bulk of its food mainly from South Africa.

He said irrigation systems should be developed to ease dependence on rain fed farming.

MP Modubule further called for funding of the armed forces, BDF and Police, saying they play a big role but they are not properly funded and do not have relevant equipment to keep the nation safe. ENDS