12 Feb 2014

The 2014/15 budget presented to Parliament by Minister of Finance and Development Planning, Mr Kenneth Matambo on February 3 continues to attract mixed reactions from Members of Parliament.

Debating the budget speech on February 10, MP for Francistown South, Mr Wynter Mmolotsi said he was not happy with the budget as it had nothing to offer for his constituency.

He said the budget would not improve the lives of Francistown people rather people’s lives would continue to deteriorate as a result of a budget that failed to allocate funds to the Francistown City Council to improve the lives of people in the area.

He said the city council had long drawn up its storm water drainage master plan but it had not been allocated funds to implement it. Currently, he said, Francistown was flooded as a result of heavy down pours exacerbated by lack of storm water drainage and poor roads.

Mr Mmolotsi requested the Minister of Local Government and Rural Development to allocate funds to the council to implement the project to address the problem of flooding. He said education was a serious problem to the extent that government has no clue as to what could be done to address the problem of poor results.

He said the MPs were aware of problems besieging education ministry therefore the government should take these issues very seriously and address them.

Touching on economic growth, Mr Mmolotsi said the budget does not inform the nation about its plan to create employment, adding that funds allocated for Ipelegeng project should have been used to finance the leather works project which would create sustainable jobs for Batswana.

He said the construction industry is growing but it only benefited foreign construction companies particularly the Chinese companies which he said have not done well in delivering projects on time, citing Francistown stadium and Morupule B.

MP for Tati West, Mr Charles Tibone said the country is faced with economic challenges such as the weak global economy and global economic recession which ravaged the market for exports but commended Mr Matambo for constructing a relatively good budget against all odds.

He said there is no perfect budget as such there would always be disagreements adding that he does not expect the opposition to agree with the budget.

Mr Tibone said this budget is people centred and close to 50 per cent of it goes to social welfare.

However, he said the 29 per cent allocated to productive activities was too small and would not allow the country to create the number of jobs the economy requires.

He said there was need for a comprehensive programme aimed at winning people out of Ipelegeng since the programme is a temporary relief measure.

MP for Kanye South, Mr Abram Kesupile said research should be made a priority across all sectors to help the government come up with ways to fight unemployment.

He said the government has been emphasising the need to diversify the economy but it has no road map as to how it was going to diversify the economy.

In addition, Mr Kesupile commended the government for increasing the VAT threshold stating that VAT has resulted in the closure of some businesses.

MP for Palapye, Mr Moiseraele Goya commended Mr Matambo for using the Incremental Budgeting System which he said was more advantageous than the Zero based Budget system because it was stable and changes gradually.

However, he expressed concern over the growing recurrent budget whilst the development budget continues to record zero growth, saying “This is not good because if left unaddressed the government will not be able to manage the recurrent budget.”

In addition, he said this makes the budget more consumptive.  ENDS