16 Feb 2014

The Member of Parliament for Gaborone North, Mr Keletso Rakhudu said he is happy that the budget shows growth.

Debating the 2014/2015 budget proposals, he said, the budget had also taken into account the fact that the country had been under difficult economic conditions.

However, Mr Rakhudu said unemployment and growing the economy still posed a serious challenge to this country because of a small domestic market. Countries like South Africa and Zimbabwe were envied because they had a large domestic market which grew the economy, he said.

Mr Rakhudu, who is also the Assistant Minister of Trade and Industry, said the Ministry of Health and that of Education and Skills Development had been allocated a significant budget as they were people centred.

Furthermore, he said, lack of capacity to spend had resulted in unspent funds being returned, blaming this on the civil service, saying civil servants were charged with the responsibility to implement government programmes under their respective ministries.

Contributing to the debate, Member of Parliament for Gaborone West North Mr Robert Masitara commended the ministers of Education and Skills Development and that of Minerals, Energy and Water Resources for turning fortunes around their respective ministries.  

He said the two ministers should be saluted for reviving collapsed system adding that power outages and water shortage have seriously affected the nation, hence the need to investigate those who contributed to the collapse systems.    

Mr Masitara said companies should not be allowed to do business with former chief executive officers found guilty of corruption because by so doing they are sowing the seeds of corruption. Regarding social welfare, Mr Masitara said he appreciated the Ipelegeng programme because it provided temporary employment which alleviated people from poverty.

Even though the programme is not sustainable, he said it has changed people’s lives for the better. For his part, MP for Gaborone South Mr Kagiso Molatlhegi said government has been driving the economy well but should improve further in this area.

He said government should bear in mind that economic activities have a bearing on the ecosystem hence the need to practice recycling to create permanent jobs. MP Molatlhegi expressed his happiness with funds allocated to the health ministry saying that the funds wouldl enable the ministry to re-engineer its systems and improve on the provision of health services. Ends