16 Feb 2014

Member of Parliament for Tswapong North, Mr Prince Maele has called on government to take action against accounting officers who return unspent development funds at the end of financial years.

Debating the 2014/15 national budget proposals, Mr Maele said such officers denied Batswana much needed developments saying this showed poor planning and lack of capacity on the capacity of the accounting officers. MP Maele said such funds could have been channeled to other developments rather than returned to government coffers.

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which he sat in, did not have powers to take any action against the officers. He said Minister of Finance and Development Planning should in future consider performance based budgeting rather than the traditional budgeting. The performance budget did not focus on how much was spent but rather on achievements and it promoted accountability and efficiency, he said.

The Tswapong North legislator further called on South East South MP, Mr Odirile Motlhale to retable his motion calling for establishment of a Constituency Fund saying this would promote rural development. He said further, the constituents would own the developments as they would be engaged in the planning process.

With the Constituency Fund, each constituency is allocated an equal amount and it is up to the residents to choose where and how they will spend the funds. The legislator said if the motion is brought before Parliament, he will fully give it his support saying Kenya has adopted this mode of rural development.

He further said government should be working towards a private led economy not the current scenario under which entrepreneurs wait for the national budget to know their fate. Mr Maele said reliance on government spending was detrimental because in that scenario, when government coffers decline, the private sector subsequently folds.

He said this can be achieved through tax incentives to enable the private sector to grow. MP Maele said government should promote the informal sector saying studies have showed that 60 per cent of the people in the sector were women adding it further reduced poverty and unemployment. He urged government to assist them issuing land rights and micro loans.

The MP further said government should differentiate between social and economic ministries when allocating funds saying the latter ministries offer better returns. He said Botswana should look into sustainability of its social safety nets saying by promoting economic ministries, the returns on investment would then be used to fund the social programmes.

He further said he was concerned that the development budget has been declining while recurrent budget increases saying the former promotes investments. Ngwaketse West MP, Mr Mephato Reatile has meanwhile said the public officers are responsible for leading the President to issue a false statement regarding the state of Morupule B and power in Botswana.

He said he does not understand why people castigated the President while in actual fact he got the information from experts employed in public service. Mr Reatile said such experts have previously said there were no cost overruns yet Parliament passed a P1 billion supplementary budget for emergency energy supply and to import power from South African power utility company, Eskom.

The Ngwaketse West legislator said he was concerned about the P760 million earmarked for consultation. He said many reports from consultants are yet to be implemented hence he was disturbed by the increased funds for consultancy.

Mr Reatile said instead more funds could have been channeled towards science and research or transport saying the P56 million allocated for procurement of vehicles was not enough to address shortages. He said Mabutsane was long declared a sub district during District Development Plan (DDP) 4 and currently they are at DDP 7 but others which were declared after. Ends