YO UR VOI C E I N P AR LI AM E N T THE FIRST MEETING OF THE FIFTH SESSION OF THE ELEVENTH PARLIAMENT HANSARD NO. 192 DAILY ENGLISH VERSION DISCLAIMER Unofficial Hansard This transcript of Parliamentary proceedings is an unofficial version of the Hansard and may contain inaccuracies. It is hereby published for general purposes only. The final edited version of the Hansard will be published when available and can be obtained from the Assistant Clerk (Editorial). THURSDAY 15 NOVEMBER 2018
Transcript
YOUR VOICE IN PARLIAMENT
THE FIRST MEETING OF THE FIFTH SESSION OF THE ELEVENTH PARLIAMENT
HANSARD NO. 192
DAILY
ENGLISH VERSION
DISCLAIMERUnofficial HansardThis transcript of Parliamentary proceedings is an unofficial version of the Hansard and may contain inaccuracies. It is hereby published for general purposes only. The final edited version of the Hansard will be published when available and can be obtained from the Assistant Clerk (Editorial).
WEDNESDAY 07 NOVEMBER 2018TUESDAY 13 NOVEMBER 2018THURSDAY 15 NOVEMBER 2018
THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY SPEAKERThe Hon. Gladys K. T. Kokorwe PH, MP.
DEPUTY SPEAKERThe Hon. Kagiso P. Molatlhegi, MP Gaborone South
Clerk of the National AssemblyDeputy Clerk of the National AssemblyLearned Parliamentary CounselAssistant Clerk (E)
- Ms B. N. Dithapo - Mr L. T. Gaolaolwe - Ms M. Mokgosi - Mr R. Josiah
CABINET
His Excellency Dr M. E. K. Masisi, MP - President
His Honour S. Tsogwane, MP. (Boteti West) - Vice President
Hon. Dr P. Venson-Moitoi, MP. (Serowe South) - Minister of Local Government and Rural Development
Hon. O. K. Mokaila, MP. (Specially Elected) - Minister of Transport and Communications
Hon. N. E. Molefhi, MP. (Selebi Phikwe East) - Minister for Presidential Affairs, Governance and Public Administration
Hon. S. Kgathi, MP. (Bobonong) - Minister of Defence, Justice and Security
Hon. T. S. Khama, MP. (Serowe West) - Minister of Environment, Natural Resources Conservation and Tourism
Hon. B. Arone, MP. (Okavango) - Minister of Basic Education
Hon. D. K. Makgato, MP. (Sefhare - Ramokgonami) - Minister of Nationality, Immigration and Gender Affairs
Hon. O. K. Matambo, MP. (Specially Elected) - Minister of Finance and Economic Development
Hon. V. T. Seretse, MP. (Lentsweletau - Mmopane) - Minister of Infrastructure and Housing Development
Hon. M. N. Ngaka, MP (Takatokwane) - Minister of Tertiary Education, Research, Science and Technology
Hon. Dr U. Dow, MP. (Specially Elected) - Minister of International Affairs and Cooperation
Hon. T. Mabeo, MP. (Thamaga - Kumakwane) - Minister of Employment, Labour Productivity and Skills Development
Hon. Dr A. Madigele, MP. (Mmathethe - Molapowabojang) - Minister of Health and Wellness
Hon. E. M. Molale, MP. (Specially Elected) - Minister of Mineral Resources, Green Technology and Energy Security
Hon. K. Mzwinila, MP (Mmadinare) - Minister of Land Management, Water and Sanitation Services
Hon. T. Olopeng, MP. (Tonota) - Minister of Youth Empowerment, Sport and Culture Development
Hon. P. P. Ralotsia, MP. (Kanye North) - Minister of Agricultural Development and Food Security
Hon. B. J. Kenewendo, MP. (Specially Elected) - Minister of Investment, Trade and Industry
Hon. B. M. Tshireletso, MP. (Mahalapye East) - Assistant Minister, Local Government and Rural Development
Hon. M. M. Goya, MP. (Palapye) - Assistant Minister, Investment, Trade and Industry
Hon. D. P. Makgalemele, MP (Shoshong) - Assistant Minister, Youth Empowerment, Sport and Culture Development
Hon. F. M. M. Molao, MP (Shashe West) - Assistant Minister, Tertiary Education, Research, Science and Technology
Hon. K. K. Autlwetse, MP (Serowe North) - Assistant Minister, Local Government and Rural Development
Hon. G. B. Butale, MP (Tati West) - Assistant Minister, Health and Wellness
Hon. T. Kwerepe, MP (Ngami) - Assistant Minister, Basic Education
Hon. I. E. Moipisi, MP (Kgalagadi North) - Assistant Minister, Land Management, Water and Sanitation Services
Hon. M. R. Shamukuni, MP (Chobe) - Assistant Minister, Presidential Affairs, Governance and Public Administration
Hon. F. S. Van Der Westhuizen, MP. (Kgalagadi South) - Assistant Minister, Agricultural Development and Food Security
MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT AND THEIR CONSTITUENCIES
Names Constituency
RULING PARTY (Botswana Democratic Party)
Hon. S. M. Guma, MP Tati East
Hon. C. De Graaff, MP Ghanzi South
Hon. P. M. Maele, MP Lerala - Maunatlala
Hon. L. Kablay, MP Letlhakeng - Lephephe
Hon. S. Lelatisitswe, MP Boteti East
Hon. J. Molefe, MP Mahalapye West
Hon. K. Markus, MP Maun East
Hon. P. Majaga, MP Nata-Gweta
Hon. M. I. Moswaane, MP Francistown West
Hon. B. H. Billy, MP Francistown East
Hon. E. J. Batshu, MP Nkange
Hon. S. Kebonang, MP LobatseHon. K. S. Gare, MP Moshupa-ManyanaHon. M. R. Reatile, MP Specially Elected
OPPOSITION
(Umbrella for Democratic Change)
Hon. Adv. D. G. Boko, MP (Leader of Opposition) Gaborone Bonnington North
Hon. G. S. M. Mangole, MP Mochudi West
Hon. A. S. Kesupile, MP Kanye South
Hon. N. S. L. M. Salakae, MP Ghanzi North
Hon. Dr. T. O. M. Mmatli, MP Molepolole South
Hon. S. Ntlhaile, MP Jwaneng -Mabutsane
Hon. M. I. Khan, MP Molepolole North
Hon. Kgosi Lotlamoreng II Goodhope - Mabule
Hon. D. L. Keorapetse, MP Selebi Phikwe West
Hon. S. O. S. Rantuana, MP Ramotswa
Hon. K. M. Segokgo, MP Tlokweng
Hon. B. M. Molebatsi, MP Mochudi East
(Alliance for Progressives)
Hon. W. B. Mmolotsi, MP Francistown South
Hon. Maj. Gen. P. Mokgware, MP Gabane-Mmankgodi
Hon. N. N. Gaolathe, MP Gaborone Bonnington South
Hon. S. Kgoroba, MP Mogoditshane
Hon. Dr P. Butale, MP Gaborone Central
Hon. H. G. Nkaigwa, MP Gaborone North
(Independent Member of Parliament)
Hon. T. Moremi, MP Maun West
TABLE OF CONTENTS THE FIRST MEETING OF THE FIFTH SESSION
OF THE ELEVENTH PARLIAMENT Thursday 15 November, 2018
CONTENTS PAGE (S)
QUESTIONS FOR ORAL ANSWER.........................................................................................................1 - 10
TABLING OF PAPERGambling Authority (GA) Annual Report, 2018.................................................................................................10
STATEMENTUpdate On Diarrhoea Outbreak...................................................................................................................11 - 14
Response to the President’s SpeechMotion (Resumed Debate)...........................................................................................................................15 - 34
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Thursday 15th November 2018 QUESTIONS FOR ORAL ANSWER
Thursday 15th November, 2018
THE ASSEMBLY met at 2:00 p.m.
(THE SPEAKER in the Chair)
P R A Y E R S
* * * *
MR SPEAKER (MR MOLATLHEGI): Order! Good afternoon Honourable Members!
HONOURABLE MEMBERS: Mr Speaker.
MR SPEAKER: I said good afternoon Honourable Members.
HONOURABLE MEMBERS: Good afternoon!
QUESTIONS FOR ORAL ANSWER
DEPLOYMENT OF PICKETS ALONG THE DILAPIDATED BOTSWANA/ZIMBABWE
BORDER FENCE
MR E. J. BATSHU (NKANGE): asked the Minister of Agricultural Development and Food Security when he will deploy pickets along the dilapidated Botswana/Zimbabwe border fence between the villages of Goshwe and Maitengwe in order to prevent the possible outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease due to cattle from Botswana constantly coming into contact with those from Zimbabwe.
ASSISTANT MINISTER OF AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT AND FOOD SECURITY (MR VAN DER WESTHUIZEN): Mr Speaker, picketing along Botswana/Zimbabwe veterinary cordon fence is a critical component of the disease control strategy in my ministry. My ministry, through the Department of Veterinary Services continues to embark on a mission to revamp the picketing system by regrouping pickets and setting up mini camps along the common border with Zimbabwe. Deployment of picketers at these strategic mini camps started on the 6th June 2017 and three picket points have been established at Dzibanana, Sematlaphiri and Marobalakgomo in the Nata/Maitengwe area. More deployments and setting up of such mini camps at Nsekesa, Dagwi and Nkhwanya picket points will be completed by the end of March 2019.
Mr Speaker, my ministry is also aware of the status of the disease control cordon fences running along Botswana/Zimbabwe border. Maintenance of these disease control
fences is the ministry’s priority. Currently, fence maintenance teams are undertaking maintenance works from Maitengwe quarantine station through Maitengwe border post towards Nkhwanya picket point near Goshwe village.
Mr Speaker, in an effort to strengthen and address transport shortage for fence maintenance teams, a new Toyota Land Cruiser vehicle was issued to Dagwi camp on the 8th November 2018. I thank you.
HONOURABLE MEMBER: Supplementary.
MR SPEAKER: Where is it coming from?
HONOURABLE MEMBER: … (Inaudible) …
MR SPEAKER: Why are you covering the microphone?
HONOURABLE MEMBER: I am not covering it.
MAJ. GEN. MOKGWARE: Supplementary. Thank you very much Minister for your answer. There was once a time when it was said that electricity will be connected to the line that you are talking about because elephants pass there every day and even these pickets cannot do anything else. What solution are you coming up with so that elephants will not cut the fence again since they are destroying it even if pickets are there it does not help?
MR VAN DER WESTHUIZEN: The elephants damaging the fence Mr Speaker is an issue that we are discussing almost on a daily basis because as you rightly say, the maintenance is compromised by the damage done by the elephants. Electrification of fences; I cannot report anything positive about that or that we are doing any electrification of any fences. Thank you.
REGULATION OF PRIVATE TERTIARY EDUCATION FEES
MR H. G. NKAIGWA (GABORONE NORTH): asked the Minister of Tertiary Education, Research, Science and Technology to state:
(i) if there are plans by Government to regulate private tertiary education fees for different courses offered at Certificate, Diploma and Degree level;
(ii) whether this exercise cannot assist Government save money that will in turn help to absorb more students into private tertiary institutions; and
(iii) the amount paid to private tertiary and individual institutions from inception to date.
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Thursday 15th November 2018 QUESTIONS FOR ORAL ANSWER
ASSISTANT MINISTER OF TERTIARY EDUCATION, RESEARCH, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (MR MOLAO): Thank you Mr Speaker.
(i) Mr Speaker, my ministry has no plans to regulate private tertiary education fees for different courses at Certificate, Diploma and Degree level because they operate in a free market economy. My ministry has instead signed a Memorandum of Agreement with private tertiary education institutions which provides for the negotiation of fee rates between the Government and the affected institutions. The Memorandum of Agreement effected on April 2018.
(ii) Mr Speaker, the intervention referred to by the Honourable Member of this House could assist the Government save money, but that may be to the detriment of the institutions and it will be anti-competitive. We are operating in a free market economy and it would not be prudent to exert such measures.
(iii) The total amount that has been paid to private tertiary education and individual institutions from inception in 2006 to date is P4 658 044 189.98.
I thank you Mr Speaker.
MR MMOLOTSI: Supplementary. Minister, have you not thought of providing what we call or offering take or leave it kind of arrangement? Where you say to a tertiary institution, this is how much you are prepared to pay for this course after benchmarking of course with other institutions and say this is what we can afford, if you cannot take this then you leave it. Do you not think that would work for the Government?
MR MOLAO: Mr Speaker, individual institutions do submit their course structure, course fees or their fees structure and we get into intense negotiations. I can assure this House that on several occasions many institutions have been turned down on fee increases as per the negotiations that ensue. When they are turned down, then of course they are forced to live within the structure or the fees that we have put in place. So, that is how we negotiate but we cannot beforehand, say… On average let me say, private institutions locally as compared to even our public institutions, the fee structure is almost comparative or similar if you like, the difference is very negligible. Thank you Mr Speaker.
HONOURABLE MEMBER: Supplementary.
MR SPEAKER: The last one Honourable Nkaigwa.
MR NKAIGWA: Supplementary. Thank you Mr Speaker. Thank you Honourable Minister. I want to appreciate from you Honourable Minister, how you determine prices for courses that are mostly not accredited as it is the situation in most of these private tertiary institutions that they are offering courses which are not accredited by Botswana Qualifications Authority (BQA). How did you agree on the price of such courses?
Also to appreciate from you, whether you are happy or satisfied with the value for money of the graduates that we get from these private institutions?
Lastly, to appreciate also from you how a school in my constituency in Sebele, the flying school, Government agreed with such a school which is offering courses that are called bogus to students? They do not have value despite the fact that you continue to pay them high sums of money towards the education of those young people.
MR MOLAO: Mr Speaker, it is not the ministry that necessarily determines the price. Each institution submits each fee structure for various courses that they offer. We get into discussions as to whether Government is able to pay to the tune of the fee structure that has been so submitted. It is the institution that determines, even public institution, if you take University of Botswana (UB), it is not the ministry that determines to UB to say, you shall charge so much for a particular course. It is UB that formulates its own fee structure and submits to the ministry, in the same way as private institutions. I have said here that the prices are comparable for both private and public institutions.
The issue of accreditation; Mr Speaker, without belabouring the point, the House should note that we do not pay for non-accredited courses. Probably what he is referring to is that, currently during the life of Tertiary Education Council (TEC), they had four categories of accreditation, which courses were to be approved as a first stage and then they can migrate to another stage until they are fully accredited. There are four stages that courses had to go through. Of course we still have some institutions offering courses that are at approved stage, some at provisional accredited and some at full accredited. With the new Botswana Qualifications Authority (BQA) requirements that now each institution has to abide by, we only have one status which is just full accreditation. Institutions are still migrating from the old structure to the new regulations and therein there is a transition period, that is where a lot of institutions are still transitioning to the new accreditation regulations that are under BQA.
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Aviation School; you will understand that when BQA accredited the local aviation schools, they do it with the approval of Civil Aviation Authority Botswana (CAAB) as a professional body. It is not BQA that necessarily determines whether the school gets a license or not, it is through CAAB, which is a professional body that does not fall under the Ministry of Tertiary Education. These local institutions were as per the BQA requirements and also as requirements of the professional body being CAAB accreditation. There have been challenges, that is why for this academic year, we decided at the ministry not to sponsor new students to those institutions in response to the challenges that they are now encountering.
Lastly, value for money; it is debatable, I cannot stand here and say we are fully satisfied. There are gaps and we are working on closing those gaps, but of course we believe that the graduates who exit such institutions can find space in our economy. Thank you Mr Speaker.
YOUTH COMPANIES WHICH BENEFITED FROM THE MINISTRY OF ENVIRONMENT,
NATURAL RESOURCES CONSERVATION AND TOURISM
MR M. R. REATILE (SPECIALLY ELECTED): asked the Minister of Environment, Natural Resources Conservation and Tourism to state the names and number of youth companies that have benefited from his ministry including parastatals and independent departments under Government Policy Reform of 2015: Affirmative Action in favour of youth on the following:
(iv) Fire breaks tenders (30 per cent of Cutlines and Fire Break tenders to be reserved for the youth in business. Cut lines and fire breaks tenders are an opportunity to empower young people in business as the level of technology and as skills required are low. (Presidential Directive CAB 14 (B)/2015); and
(v) he should further state the lowest and highest amount of tender awarded.
MINISTER OF ENVIRONMENT, NATURAL RESOURCES CONSERVATION AND TOURISM (MR KHAMA): Thank you very much.
Mr Speaker, my ministry has the following names and number of youth companies that have benefited from this ministry including parastatals under Government Policy Reform of 2015: Affirmative Action in favour of youth:
Mr Speaker, this has been a challenge for the ministry to achieve. It is applied when youth companies are awarded tenders under the open tender system.
(iv) Fire breaks tenders (30 per cent) of cutlines and fire breaks tenders to be reserved for youth businesses.
Mr Speaker, tenders for firebreaks and cutlines are awarded on a three-year contract. The latest award was for the period that ends this financial year of 2018/2019, where youth contracts were not awarded because they did not meet the requirements.
(v) Highest and lowest amount of tender awarded;
The highest amount awarded to youth was P418, 992.00 which was awarded to Ture Interior Architects (PTY) Ltd while the lowest was P99.50 for DOT Investment (PTY) Ltd. I thank you Mr Speaker.
MR REATILE: Supplementary. Thank you Mr Speaker. Thank you Minister for your answer. If we have a Presidential Directive that has been released in 2013, yet it is evident that in your Ministry you fail to meet and satisfy that directive, what are your efforts in making sure that the youth of this country benefit from it?
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Thursday 15th November 2018 QUESTIONS FOR ORAL ANSWER
MR KHAMA: Thank you Mr Speaker, a very valuable point indeed. Mr Speaker, one of the challenges we have is that when those Directives are made and those decisions are called upon, people need to benefit, it is not necessarily done. We have a similar situation with Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) as well, where youth will get a loan but they do not have money or they will get a grant and they do not have money to carry out an EIA. This is something that we are asking in the amended EIA Act to be considered. I am hoping that we will be able to do the same in the situation that we have mentioned. Thank you Mr Speaker.
NUMBER OF MALE AND FEMALE PRISONERS AT BOTSWANA PRISON FACILITIES
MR E. J. BATSHU (NKANGE): asked the Minister of Defence, Justice and Security to state:
(i) the number of male and female prisoners held at the Botswana Prison facilities; and
(ii) how many of the prisoners are foreigners and which countries they are from.
MINISTER OF DEFENCE, JUSTICE AND SECURITY (MR KGATHI): Thank you Mr Speaker.
(i) Mr Speaker, there are 3 997 male and 144 female prisoners held at the Botswana Prisons facilities.
(ii) 619 of the prisoners are foreigners of which 473 are from Zimbabwe, 57 from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), 26 from South Africa, 19 from Zambia, 15 from Burundi, four from Namibia, four from Mozambique, four from Tanzania, three from Bangladesh, two from Lesotho, two from Somalia and one each from Nigeria, Ghana, Angola, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, Malawi, Liberia and Philippines. Thank you Mr Speaker.
MR BATSHU: Supplementary. Thank you Mr Speaker. Thank you Minister. Can you enlighten us what action you are undertaking regarding the large numbers of Zimbabweans inmates at our prisons, what action are you undertaking to liaise with Zimbabwe to assist with this burden?
MINISTER OF DEFENCE, JUSTICE AND SECURITY (MR KGATHI): Honourable Member of Parliament, you will recall the time we used to attend Joint Permanent Commissions (JPCs) together, so we
recently reached an agreement to transfer prisoners so that they can serve sentences at their native countries. We have already signed that agreement with our neighbouring countries except South Africa which we are currently dissenting on certain aspects like death sentence. There are efforts undertaken to transfer them to their countries through this agreement.
MR MAJAGA: Supplementary. Thank you Minister for your answer. Since you have shown those statistics perhaps you can enlighten this House regarding the problems which are there at Zimbabwe because during President Mugabe’s reign he indicated that those prisoners are not welcome he said they are tourists. However, recently Mr Mnangagwa indicated that doors are open those prisoners can be transferred as soon as possible. So are you the ones refusing with them as the Government of Botswana or the same thing at Zimbabwe occurred, they are refusing to welcome them as they did during Mr Mugabe’s reign?
MR KGATHI: Honourable Member, perhaps we are talking about two completely different groups of people, you are talking about those at Dukwi camp. The ones the Honourable Member is referring to are those in prison. Those at the camps are rejected by their countries they said as far as they are concerned they do not have refugees in Botswana. Despite that we have to make an arrangement with United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) so that they can return and that is underway.
THE AGREEMENT FOR A PUBLIC PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN GOVERNMENT
AND ZIMMAL RELIANCE FOR SOME PLOTS SIGNED IN 2001
MR H. G. NKAIGWA (GABORONE NORTH): asked the Minister of Land Management, Water and Sanitation Services:
(i) to state the agreement for a Public Private Partnership (PPP) between Government and Zimmal Reliance in relation to plots 56018, 56147, 54409, 56273, 56128, 56086 and 55841 that was signed in 2001;
(ii) why Zimmal still claims ownership of the above plots despite failing to fulfil the agreement for over 17 years;
(iii) why one company can be given such vast land in the city though there is shortage of land to be allocated to Batswana; and
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Thursday 15th November 2018 QUESTIONS FOR ORAL ANSWER
(iv) if he will reconsider the allocation of the eight hectares of prime land that has been allocated to a foreign owned company.
MINISTER OF LAND MANAGEMENT, WATER AND SANITATION SERVICES (MR MZWINILA): Thank you Mr Speaker.
(i) In response to Parliamentary Questions 353 and 85 of March and November 2017 respectively, it was clearly stated that plot 54409, which is located in Gaborone Central Business District (CBD), is owned by Gaborone City Council (GCC), while plots 56018, 56147, 56273, 56086 and 55841 located in Tsholofelo West are owned by the Government. The position is still the same, and the plots remain undeveloped. The above plots have been specifically excluded from the schedule of plots offered to Zimmal Reliance Botswana (Pty) Ltd in September 2002. Therefore, there was never any form of agreement with Zimmal Reliance Botswana (Pty) Ltd on these plots as they remain owned by Government and Gaborone City Council.
(ii) I am not aware of any ownership claims by Zimmal Reliance Botswana (Pty) LTD to the said plots, and I do not envisage such claims as they have never belonged to them.
(iii) Zimmal Reliance was allocated a piece of land consisting of 459 residential plots in accordance with the Public Private Partnership (PPP) initiative under land servicing program to service and sell all the plots to citizens. However, it must be noted that land servicing provided by Zimmal Reliance as part of the contract, will include plots 56018, 56147, 56273, 56086 and 55841 which are owned by the Government. As the open spaces fall within the residential plots allocated to Zimmal, it only makes logic that Zimmal takes care of their servicing. Therefore, there is no way servicing could be done without inclusion of the open spaces.
(iv) Currently, I will not reconsider the re-allocation of the block of land given to Zimmal Reliance Botswana (Pty) Ltd because they have progressed with the development of the said piece of land. The update on construction works as provided on 11th October 2018 is that the overall progress is 70 per cent complete, and that progress on individual components is as follows:
• sewer reticulation: complete and awaiting final testing;
• water reticulation: complete and awaiting testing, disinfection and commissioning;
• road and storm water drainage works: 30 per cent complete;
• onsite electrical and street lighting works: 10 per cent complete;
• telecommunication works: 95 per cent complete. I thank you Mr Speaker.
MR NKAIGWA: Supplementary. Thank you Mr Speaker. Thank you Minister. 2002; PPP agreement between the Government of Botswana and Zimmal Reliance are given a period of two years to develop, Honourable Minister. Zimmal failed to develop. How come after 15 years Zimmal is now coming on board to develop such plots when they failed to honour an agreement that was signed between yourself and them as a company? What was the arrangement now? What changed now for Government to accede to their request to develop after 15 years?
Also, I want to appreciate how Zimmal was allowed to develop without planning permission from your department? What was the procedure for them to put up a wall at the area when there was no permission from your ministry or from GCC to develop the area? What has changed?
MR SPEAKER: No, you are debating, Honourable Nkaigwa.
MR NKAIGWA: No, I want to appreciate.
MR SPEAKER: Short questions. You are out of order.
MR NKAIGWA: Mr Speaker, the initial agreement was for Zimmal to develop the area, and part of the area be given to citizens; that is 70 per cent of it and 30 per cent remain with them. What is the current arrangement? Why is it that Zimmal has been given land freely or given the rights to develop that area freely without citizens benefitting anything out of it?
MR MZWINILA: I thank you Mr Speaker. On the first question that they were given a period of two years, and why up to now they have not developed; essentially the normal practice is that we repossess land if the developer or the individual has not provided the request
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for development requirements. However, when they come to us with different issues, whether it is Zimmal or private citizen whatever the case may be, as the ministry, we try to be compassionate and understanding. It is worse to repossess from somebody who is on the way to developing, rather give them a chance, give them an extension to see if they can actually develop that plot.
The other issue is that they are not foreigners; there are three shareholders and they are citizens. The other issue was, who gave them planning permission; I am not sure, it was not part of the body of the question. You may wish to redirect that to the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development. What we deal with is in terms of land servicing not the provision or building of walls.
The other issue is that why did we give Zimmal the land. Generally, PPP was that, we sold the land to Zimmal. They actually had to buy it. They bought it at 25 per cent of the actual cost because the arrangement of the PPP is that we give them the subsidised rates so that they come in, install the infrastructure and help us in terms of servicing the land. I thank you Mr Speaker.
MR NKAIGWA: Supplementary. Thank you Mr Speaker. Thank you Honourable Minister. I want to appreciate if indeed the land was sold; when was it sold, and for how much? Also, to appreciate from you Honourable Minister that, are you aware that Zimmal on itself is not liquid, and the actual company that is doing the developments in that area is a company that your Government continues to give all tenders by the name of Unik Construction? Also, to appreciate from you that, the last allocation in Gaborone for residential plots was for the people that applied in 1989. Is it fair for the people of Botswana and for this Government to be allocating land to foreigners, or what you call naturalised Batswana when Batswana do not have residential land or a land that they can call a home?
MINISTER OF LAND MANAGEMENT, WATER AND SANITATION SERVICES (MR MZWINILA): Thank you Mr Speaker. The purchase price was P1, 710, 362 which was at 25 per cent of the actual price that you are going to offer to another individual. The reason why we did this was that; they were agreeing to develop the infrastructure, and it answers the last question which the Honourable Member was asking; what are we doing in terms of land allocation which is delaying? Our challenge is money and we do try to partner with the private sector to see if we can give them land to develop on our behalf, so that we expedite
the servicing of land. It is not just this part of land in Gaborone; there are other locations where we have done the same. We have asked the private sector to help us in terms of servicing land, to expedite it. In terms of question about unique construction; I do not have that information, the one that we have is the agreement with the one who purchased the plot. The one who purchased the plot and the contractor is a separate arrangement that we are not privy to. I thank you Mr Speaker.
YOUTH COMPANIES WHICH BENEFITED FROM THE MINISTRY OF NATIONALITY,
IMMIGRATION AND GENDER AFFAIRS
MR M. R. REATILE (SPECIALLY ELECTED): asked the Minister of Nationality, Immigration and Gender Affairs to state the names and number of youth companies that have benefited from her ministry including parastatals and independent departments under Government Policy Reform of 2015: Affirmative Action in favour of youth on the following:
(iv) she should further state the lowest and highest amount for each tender awarded.
MINISTER OF NATIONALITY, IMMIGRATION AND GENDER AFFAIRS (MS MAKGATO): I am so sorry Mr Speaker. Mr Speaker, first of all I want to state outright that I do not have any parastatals and independent departments, and also my ministry’s budget is very small. It would therefore provide context for what I am going to say. I have a number of tables here which I would not go through that I would give to the Honourable Member, I will just highlight the salient points.
(i) The number and names of youth companies that have benefitted from my ministry under Government Policy Reform of 2015: Affirmative Action in favour of Youth Reservation on Micro Procurement were 54 from October 2016 to October 2018 as indicated at Table 1, which I would give the Member.
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(ii) Number and names of youth companies that have benefitted is 19 from October 2016 to October 2018 as indicated at Table 2, that I would give to the Member.
(iii) As for price preference, the number and names of youth companies that have benefitted from my ministry were eight as per Presidential Directive CAB 19(B) (2013) from October 2016 to October 2018 as indicated at Table 3, which I will also give to the Member.
(iv) From October 2016 to October 2018, the number of youth companies that were awarded tenders were 81 in total. I have a breakdown that I do not need to go through. I thank you very much Mr Speaker.
MR SPEAKER: Honourable Lelatisitswe is not here.
AUDIT AND EVALUATION OF CITIZEN ENTREPRENEURIAL DEVELOPMENT AGENCY (CEDA) SINCE INCEPTION
MR S. O. S. RANTUANA (RAMOTSWA): asked the Minister of Investment, Trade and Industry to state:
(i) if Citizen Entrepreneurial Development Agency (CEDA) has ever been audited since inception;
(ii) the number of paid and unpaid loans obtained from CEDA since inception;
(iii) if the loan payment scheme has been validated; and
(iv) if CEDA has evaluated its programmes to find out if they benefit the nation especially programmes like Mabogo Dinku, Young Farmers Fund (YFF) and many others meant for an ordinary Motswana.
ASSISTANT MINISTER OF INVESTMENT, TRADE AND INDUSTRY (MR GOYA): Thank you Mr Speaker.
(i) Mr Speaker, CEDA has appointed independent audit firms to undertake audits of the agency’s financial statements since inception. The audit of the financial year 2017/2018 is currently ongoing and is expected to be concluded by end of this month, November 2018.
(ii) Mr Speaker, CEDA has financed 7, 286 projects since inception at an amount of P4, 9 billion. Out of these 5, 221 projects valued at P3, 6 billion are performing well, representing 76 per cent
of the portfolio while 2, 065 projects are under-performing. A total of 2 844 loans valued P1, 4 billion have been fully settled.
(iii) Mr Speaker, CEDA loans payments have been validated through internal and external audits which have been carried out since inception. The financial statements of CEDA have always reflected a true and fair outlook as passed by the auditors, and as a result of that Mr Speaker, unqualified audit reports were issued by external auditors over the years.
(iv) Mr Speaker, CEDA has evaluated its problems to find out if they benefit the nation; that is the question that the Member is asking. On this question Mr Speaker, CEDA reviews and evaluates its products offering on an ongoing basis, to ensure that they are beneficial to the nation and they meet the objective of financial inclusion. As part of its efforts to ensure financial inclusion for ordinary Batswana and on realisation that micro enterprises face challenges accessing funding from financial institutions, CEDA introduced Mabogo Dinku and Young Farmers Fund among others.
(v) Lastly Mr Speaker, since the introduction of Mabogo Dinku in 2016, CEDA has financed 1, 070 applicants through this scheme. From the total financed, 85 per cent are women and the rest are youth. The CEDA Young Farmers Fund was introduced in 2007 and since its inception, it has funded 629 youth owned enterprises in the agricultural sector valued at P272 million. I thank you Mr Speaker.
MR RANTUANA: Supplementary. Thank you Mr Speaker, thank you Minister for your answer. You said at CEDA they have their own auditors; do they submit the reports to your ministry, or what do they do after the audit? How is the Auditor General involved at CEDA? In regard to Mabogo Dinku, are you aware that CEDA has impoverished Batswana by asking them to form groups and companies, after that they are told that funds are not available? Thank you.
MR GOYA: Thank you Mr Speaker. Mr Speaker, after carrying out the audit, CEDA do submit the audit reports to us; the ministry and they are even tabled here in Parliament. Mr Speaker, the issue of impoverishing Batswana by the CEDA Mabogo Dinku programme, I am not aware of that and hence, I cannot provide any answer. I thank you.
Hansard No 19210
Thursday 15th November 2018 QUESTIONS FOR ORAL ANSWER
HONOURABLE MEMBERS: Supplementary.
HONOURABLE MEMBER: Minister of Nationality, Immigration and Gender Affairs you do not know anything about CEDA.
MR SPEAKER: Please sit down Honourable Rantuana.
MR RANTUANA: No, the Minister of Nationality Immigration and Gender Affairs does not know anything about CEDA.
MR SPEAKER: Honourable Rantuana, I said take your seat please.
MR RANTUANA: When was the last report tabled Minister?
MR SPEAKER: No, Honourable Rantuana.
MR REATILE: Supplementary. Thank you Mr Speaker. Honourable Minister when was the last time a financial report was audited at CEDA? What can you say to this Parliament regarding how the financials are at CEDA? Are you happy with them as a Minister whom CEDA is under; the way the situation is right now at CEDA?
MR GOYA: Thank you Mr Speaker. Mr Speaker, in the body of my response to this question, I did mention that an audit is currently being undertaken at CEDA, and it is going to be concluded by the end of this month. I want to promise this House that upon submission of this audit report to the ministry, it is going to be tabled in this Parliament. The audit report that has been undertaken Mr Speaker, is for 2017/2018, hence the 2016/2017 report is the last one that has been tabled in this House. Thank you.
HONOURABLE MEMBER: Point of order.
MR SPEAKER: No, there is no point of order at this time.
MR RANTUANA: Thank you Mr Speaker. Please ask the Honourable Minister to give me the answer for yesterday’s question before responding to this one.
REASONS FOR DELAYED PAYMENTS OF THE FORFEITED LEAVE DAYS FOR MEMBERS OF
THE BOTSWANA DEFENCE FORCE (BDF)
MR S. O. S. RANTUANA (RAMOTSWA): asked the Minister of Defence, Justice and Security:
(i) to state reasons for the delay in the payments of the forfeited leave days for members of the Botswana Defence Force (BDF); and
(ii) if he is aware that this can be a security risk.
MINISTER OF DEFENCE, JUSTICE AND SECURITY (MR KGATHI): Thank you Mr Speaker. Mr Speaker, the audit process of leave days for serving members has been completed and so far the BDF, has managed to pay all the eligible members accordingly. As for the separated members, the audit process is still ongoing and the BDF has audited files of personnel who separated from the organisation between 2009 and 2015.
Payment of all those found eligible commenced in March 2018. The audit for leave days is a lengthy process that requires time, especially where it entails retrieving old files and information on separate members. The process requires much diligence and therefore it will take a while to be completed. Much vetting is inevitable and it is the only means to accurately determine those who are owed forfeited leave days. Thank you Mr Speaker.
MR RANTUANA: Supplementary. Mr Speaker I did not hear him, he is inaudible. You were saying you submitted payments for which year and also what criteria was used to submit payments because right now the majority of personnel have not been paid?
MR SPEAKER: Honourable Minister, finish up we do not have time, time for questions has elapsed. Answer.
MR KGATHI: Member of Parliament, I wrote here that payments for all those found eligible commenced on March 2018 and it is ongoing. We are undertaking audits for backlog and we are continuing.
MR SPEAKER: Order! Order! Honourable Members, question time is over. We will answer the remaining questions tomorrow. You can see that this long unending supplementaries make it impossible to answer some questions. Work on your supplementaries.
TABLING OF PAPERS
MINISTER OF MINERAL RESOURCES, GREEN TECHNOLOGY AND ENERGY SECURITY (MR MOLALE): Thank you Mr Speaker and good afternoon. May I crave for your indulgence and request for a later date Mr Speaker.
MR SPEAKER: Later date.
The following paper was tabled:
GAMBLING AUTHORITY (GA) ANNUAL REPORT, 2018
(Minister of Investment, Trade and Industry)
Hansard No 192 11
Thursday 15th November 2018 STATEMENTUPDATE ON DIARRHOEA OUTBREAK
STATEMENT
UPDATE ON DIARRHOEA OUTBREAK
MINISTER OF HEALTH AND WELLNESS (DR MADIGELE): Thank you very much Mr Speaker. As promised a few days ago, I want to update this August House on the status of diarrhea outbreak.
Mr Speaker, Botswana started experiencing an increased number of diarrhoea cases, particularly in children under the age of five years starting from the 2nd of September, 2018, that was week 36. This diarrhoea outbreak continued until week 44 (week ending 3rd November).
The outbreak started from the central part of the country, in week 36, when there was a five-fold increase when 491 cases were reported compared to 104 cases in week 35. This surpassed the established national alert threshold for diarrhea with dehydration in children under five years of age.
Further analysis of district-specific data for week 36 indicated that five districts namely (Boteti, Francistown, Gaborone, Mahalapye and Selebi-Phikwe) had attained their epidemic thresholds. In the subsequent weeks, the numbers of cases continued to rise, surpassing the national epidemic threshold; in week 37 when specifically 1119 cases were reported and reaching a peak in week 38 when 1474 cases were reported.
Mr Speaker, to date total 41,556 diarrhea cases have been reported between weeks 36-44 and 80 per cent of the affected group were children under the age of two years. Regrettably, as at week 42 when the national outbreak ended, 31 deaths have been reported.
Laboratory investigations attributed the cause of the outbreak mainly to rotavirus. Of the 472 stool specimens collected and analyzed at the National Health Laboratory in Gaborone using ELISA technique, close to 70 per cent of those specimens tested positive for rotavirus. Other isolated pathogens were cryptosporidium, Salmonellae, Enteropathogenic E. coli, Adenovirus, Shigellae and Teaniasis. We therefore can confidently say that the outbreak was mainly due to rotavirus. Furthermore, genotype testing was done and identified rotavirus subtype G3P8 to be the causative strain.
My ministry has an ongoing immunisation programme that includes rotavirus vaccination for children at the ages of two months and three months with a coverage of 79% in 2017.
Children are also vaccinated against other illnesses such as Tuberculosis (TB), Hepatitis B, Polio, Pneumonia, and others, as per the national immunisation schedule.
Mr Speaker, in response to the diarrhoea outbreak my ministry in collaboration with World Health Organization (WHO) and the University of Botswana School of Public Health developed the emergency preparedness and response strategy in response to this outbreak.
Several outbreak control measures were implemented, structured under the following thematic areas: coordination and leadership, epidemiology and laboratory, case management, risk communication and social mobilisation, Water, Hygiene and Sanitation (WASH) and logistics.
Mr Speaker, to control the outbreak, several public health interventions were implemented, including those that I mentioned as thematic arears;
1. COORDINATION AND LEADERSHIP
There is a National Rapid Response Team (NRRT): Offering direct support to the districts on all aspects of outbreak management;
There is the National Emergency Operations Centre (NEOC), where the team met daily at the ministry to monitor all aspects of the situation.
There is the National Public Health Emergency Management Committee (NPHEMC); designed to offer multi sectoral support, which chaired by the Permanent Secretary.
At the district level, the District Health Management Team (DHMT) reactivated the Public Health Emergency Management (PHEM) Committee with Technical Working Groups (TWG).
2. CASE MANAGEMENT
With respect to Case Management Mr Speaker; supplies were delivered including oral rehydration salt (ORS), zinc sulphate, intravenous fluids (IVF), cannulas (for children) and antibiotics to all the health facilities.
The Integrated Management of Childhood Illnesses (IMCI) guidelines were disseminated to all health facilities to facilitate case management.
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Thursday 15th November 2018 STATEMENTUPDATE ON DIARRHOEA OUTBREAK
A National Under-five Mortality Audit Committee was tasked to audit all the deaths to inform ongoing and future response Mr Speaker.
3. SURVEILLANCE
With respect to surveillance; daily reporting from the districts to the national level was instituted to monitor morbidity and mortality data collection and analysis by time, place and person and develop epi-curve, attack rate and case-fatality rate.
The ministry immediately prepared and disseminated line list guidelines to all districts on recommended interventions for control of the diarrhea outbreak.
Support supervision teams visited the DHMT using a supervisory checklist, which focused on public health emergency management, surveillance and epidemiology, health promotion and education, diagnosis and case management, water and sanitation, laboratory services for early diagnosis, logistics and transport.
4. LABORATORY
Mr Speaker, with respect to laboratory; laboratory diagnostic services for confirmation of pathogens causing public health events and early detection of epidemics.
Rotavirus rapid test kits were distributed to facilities for point of care diagnosis.
We work hand in hand with WHO Regional office and also WHO regional reference laboratory in South Africa for quality control, genotyping and testing for other viral pathogens.
5. WATER, SANITATION AND HYGIENE (WASH)
Mr Speaker, with respect to Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), a baseline assessment on sanitation and hygiene status was conducted in selected districts and this formed the basis for planning outbreak control interventions.
A Communication, Advocacy and Social Mobilisation plan that was developed with two main key action areas, namely; public engagement through publicity and education and advocacy and social mobilisation and key messages were developed, focusing on promoting early healthcare seeking behaviour, vaccination against rotavirus, detention of early signs of diarrhoea and possible dehydration.
Essential drugs in terms of logistics were distributed to districts and health facilities and stock levels were monitored and reported on daily basis. An emergency order of Oral Rehydration Salts (ORS) was placed with the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), with World Health Organisation (WHO) donating some stocks. The Central Medical Stores (CMS) bulk order was later received and distributed to all the districts in need.
With respect to mobilisation of human resource, I wish to thank the University of Botswana Medical School which provided doctors who were helping with the management of cases. Other stakeholders include the Botswana Defence Force (BDF) who provided human resource as well, Botswana Red Cross and WHO.
Through the engagement of specialist from WHO and University of Botswana, our analysis revealed that there are two diarrhoea seasons; which is January to March and August to October and my ministry has undertaken to intensify surveillance and diarrhoea preventive measures to ensure that the country does not experience another outbreak. In that token, we are currently implementing the structural reforms where we are setting up the Botswana Public Health Institute which will be taking care of the Emergency Operation Centre which will be monitoring epidemics like zenotics, Ebola and the Zika virus which might actually become epidemics in future.
Let me take this opportunity to thank all my healthcare workers who worked very tirelessly during this outbreak as well as various partners who supported us and also Batswana, our citizenry for helping us to contain this epidemic by adhering to the advices that were rendered to them by our healthcare professionals. I thank you Mr speaker.
MR SPEAKER: Thank you Honourable Minister. Order! Honourable Members, in order for you to understand the Minister’s presentation, I am going to allow few brief questions.
MR NKAIGWA: I thank you Mr Speaker. Thank you Minister for the positive response. I need clarification. There are some Batswana who believe that the main cause of the diarrhoea outbreak is the water that we drink. On the other hand, is diarrhoea contagious?
Lastly Minister I want to understand something, there is an allegation that the company that has been contracted
Hansard No 192 13
Thursday 15th November 2018 STATEMENTUPDATE ON DIARRHOEA OUTBREAK
to construct the Gaborone-Boatle road has been given the permission to prepare the tar near Gaborone Dam; there is therefore possibility that what they are doing might have contaminated the water. Do you have anything to say regarding that Minister?
Lastly, do you not have any plans to hire the youth who are not employed, just to train them so that they could go around the country teaching Batswana about issues such as this one of the diarrhoea outbreak as it might be caused by our poor eating habits?
MR SPEAKER: Honourable Members I request that your questions be brief for the sake of time.
DR MADIGELE: Thank you very much Mr Speaker and many thanks to the Honourable Member for Gaborone North. Starting with the third one, indeed we are in the process of engaging community healthcare workers in line with our paradigm shift of going preventive rather than curative. Numbers have been vended around depending on the number that we need to hire district by district and the last number that was calculated was around 5 000 but there are constraints to that in that there is that moratorium of hiring from the Directorate of Public Service Management (DPSM) and we are seeking other alternative ways like outsourcing services from companies that will be having expertise in community healthcare provision. It is indeed very paramount that we go back to the roots, primary healthcare as espoused by the Alma-Ata Declaration of 1978 to make sure that we reach all corners of the country because we believe that health belongs to the communities.
With respect to the Gaborone-Boatle issue; I am not aware Honourable Member about that allegation. It is my first time to hear about it on the floor but in any case I think even if I suspected I knew something; I would not be the right person to answer. Honourable Kefentse Mzwinila perhaps would be able to attempt to answer that one.
Diarrhoea is mainly caused by various pathogens; it can be bacteria or virus and most of the time it is transmitted through faecal oral route, contaminated water or contaminated food.
The issue of the water; indeed, in the initial stages of the outbreak, we actually engaged Water Utilities Corporation (WUC) who together with our team did water quality assessment. Samples were collected
around several districts, especially the hard-hit areas like Boteti, Selebi Phikwe and Gaborone and the results were negative for any pathogen that was linked to the diarrhoea. I thank you.
MR BILLY: I thank you Honourable Minister. Do you not think our public education is not enough because according to your report, every year we experience two diarrhoea outbreaks around January to March and you also mentioned other months? Do you not think that probably your public education is not enough? Secondly, you stated that in most cases the towns are the ones which are affected; Francistown, Boteti, but Boteti is not a town it is a semi-developed area and Gaborone. One would want to know why because the expectation is that this could be happening in rural areas where people drink contaminated water. Why in town? Do you not think there is a reason why there is diarrhoea in towns? I thank you.
DR MADIGELE: Thank you very much Honourable Member. I will start with the second one; the reason why I mentioned those five it was because they were the initial epicentres of the problem but subsequently each and every district was affected and had experienced the outbreak.
The latest immunisation coverage that I spoke about was for last year which is 2017 which was 79 per cent. Ideally we would like to have 90 per cent coverage where children are taken to the health facilities to get vaccination. Attaining close to 90 per cent limits the possibilities or the risks of having outbreaks. So indeed with respect to public health education, there is room for improvement; we will continue to seek ways and means of facilitating and increasing public health education.
MR SEGOKGO: Thank you Mr Speaker. Minister, I hear you talking about Mortality Audit Committee which I take they looked at all that they had to find out what the problem could be. You know you talked of the epi-curve and all that. My question therefore is, was there any epidemiological pattern that was realised by then more so that you even engaged experts outside in South Africa. Is there anything tangible that you can say this is what had caused this?
DR MADIGELE: I forgot to respond to another point, I think by Honourable Billy, which said the pattern showed urban areas more than rural areas. We noticed that, that initially more urban areas were affected and we conducted a study through engaging the Early
Hansard No 19214
Thursday 15th November 2018 STATEMENTUPDATE ON DIARRHOEA OUTBREAK
Childhood School Health Programme where we went to various kindergartens to sample cases there, and we found that there was a link between the more the numbers attended kindergarten, the more the risk increased. So there was that link that as opposed to the rural areas where most kids stay home who are under five, in urban areas most of the kids who are under five actually go to kindergartens and that increases the likelihood of an increasing rate of spread of pathogens.
Turning to Honourable Segokgo, this is a preliminary report; the team is currently still working on finalising the report. We are currently looking at the vaccine itself, the batch that is used in Botswana, because we realised that only two countries experienced this outbreak in Southern African Development Community (SADC), eSwatini and Botswana. We are currently using the same batch. We are the only countries that are buying directly for themselves not through World Health Organisation (WHO), or through a system called Govie and these are some of the issues we are still interrogating over and above other finer details that we need to come up with a conclusion of what really transpired.
With respect to the Mortality Audit Committee Honourable Member, we have not finished auditing all the deaths. The Audit Committee has concluded the audit on 24 deaths and we have seen that a good number of those deaths are BID or they were Brought-in-Dead (BID) clients, and for some it was not quite clear whether there was indeed diarrhoea in the first place. We have identified that some cases had comorbidities like Sepsis, Pneumonia, Meningitis and this could have been the possible causes rather than the diarrhoea, so we are still monitoring the situation in terms of the full audit and the full report.
MR SPEAKER: Let us conclude this matter.
DR P. BUTALE: Thank you Mr Speaker. It is just a short question Minister. I seek your indulgence and guidance here to now just assure the nation that these recurring cases of diarrhoea have nothing to do with the quality of water that runs through our taps. Can you just come out emphatically clear that there is no correlation between these recurring cases and the quality of water that runs through our taps?
DR MADIGELE: Thank you Honourable Speaker and Honourable Member. For this current outbreak, tests were done, samples were taken and there was no evidence from the test results that there were pathogens
that I have already mentioned, especially rotavirus and other pathogens that I have mentioned like Shigella and E.coli for this particular one. I cannot answer for other causes at the moment, but for this particular one I can assure you.
MR NTLHAILE: Thank you Mr Speaker. I thank the Minister even though I find him concluding his presentation. Minister, I want to ask you how much should Batswana trust that your Ministry is capable of anticipating outbreaks like this one or others that we may have like the one we have experienced? Do you really have as a department or as a ministry, appropriate capabilities in place to anticipate such outbreaks? The last one being that, what do you have in place to ensure that the under-fives or the preschool category are not constantly attacked by such outbreaks? How safe are they because it seems like this group is exposed or affected more than other groups when there are such outbreaks?
MR SPEAKER: To cut these questions, you should scribble them before you ask. Proceed Honourable Minister.
DR MADIGELE: Thank you very much Honourable Speaker and my neighbour Honourable Ntlhaile at Thankane. Mr Speaker, we are in the process of setting up an emergency operation centre at the newly set up Botswana Public Health Institute. We are doing this through the help of African CDC (Centre for Disease Control and prevention) which is based in Zambia. We have already benchmarked at that particular CDC and also at Congo Brazzaville where WHO regional office is located. We believe that by leveraging on technology, we should be able to, going forward have real time data monitoring and surveillance as we are nearing completion of the procurement of such, so that you can set up a shock room where we will be having an operation centre, where we will be able to see real time data coming in from various localities, through utilisation of the GPRS system, to know exactly where the focal points are. Are we done or is there another one?
HONOURABLE MEMBER: …(Inaudible)…
DR MADIGELE: Ooh! The under-fives. What do we do to prevent; I think we should intensify our public health education, and our primordial prevention through utilisation of a community health approach, primary health care system in terms of health education, domiciliary visits, engaging all stakeholders because it cannot be the Government only, it needs a multi-central concerted effort to really attain this one. I thank you.
MR SPEAKER: Thank you Honourable Members, let us continue.
Hansard No 192 15
Thursday 15th November 2018 RESPONSE TO THE PRESIDENT’S SPEECHMotion (Resumed Debate)
RESPONSE TO THE PRESIDENT’S SPEECH
Motion
(Resumed Debate)
MR SPEAKER: Order Honourable Members. When we adjourned yesterday, Honourable Ralotsia was on the floor. You are still left with 26 minutes. You do not have to exhaust your time if you feel you have spoken. The floor is yours Honourable Member.
MINISTER OF AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT AND FOOD SECURITY (MR RALOTSIA): Thank you Mr Speaker. Yesterday I pointed out that we have Vision 2036. When we left here yesterday, I assessed what we debated in Parliament and I got angry because of what Honourable Keorapetse said. His words could divide tribes or the nation itself. I recalled them as they were uttered Mr Speaker, I wondered if our children would not encounter tribalism issues in future. The shocking thing is that although some people worry that some people come from South while others from North, when you look at the opposition parties, all their leaders come from the South except one. You can reference Honourable Duma Boko who is a Member of Parliament for Gaborone Bonnington North.
HONOURABLE MEMBER: … (Inaudible) …
MR RALOTSIA: You are from South. You can take Leader of Alliance for Progressives (AP), Honourable Gaolathe, Member of Parliament for Gaborone. There is no Gaborone in the North. You may also take Member of Parliament of Botswana from Movement for Democracy (BMD)...
HONOURABLE MEMBER: … (Inaudible) …
MR RALOTSIA: No, just keep quiet and let me know if you want to say something. They are from the South even Mr Pilane. So we never consider where a person comes from. I am disappointed by people who are irresponsible, yesterday when they talked about …
HONOURABLE MEMBER: Clarification.
MR RALOTSIA: Let me hear you.
MR MOLEBATSI: Clarification. Honourable Ralotsia, is it not that Bokone means North and Borwa means South? Those people you are referring to, I remember them crossing Dibete and we treated them as if they come from the North. You can agree or disagree with me.
MR RALOTSIA: Do you mean a mere assumption?
MR MOLEBATSI: Where they come from.
MR RALOTSIA: Honourable, I am considering the fact that they are Members of Parliament of constituencies on the South. I do not get your point because… for them to get these leadership positions they have to come here, then we associate them with Gaborone.
What I wanted to say was it could be bad if a specific individual was picked and then they become persecuted because they are not educated, and have no position. If that individual cannot express themselves in this Parliament and defend their position. Regarding that Mr Speaker, you should always take position because other countries fought because of these. Sometimes a conflict will start because of bananas; you will hear that people fought because they argued about bananas.
Now when we parted yesterday …
MINISTER OF NATIONALITY, IMMIGRATION AND GENDER AFFAIRS (MS MAKGATO): Elucidation. Thank you Mr Speaker. I was not here but I am worried, I get angry when you say that in Botswana …
HONOURABLE MEMBER: … (Inaudible) …
HONOURABLE MEMBERS: … (Laughter!) …
MS MAKGATO: Yes, I get angry. In Botswana unlike in other countries, for instance, in South Africa they categorise themselves, one writes their names then specifies if they are an Indian, a black and so on. In Botswana, we are all Batswana and now I wonder what this North means? What are they saying? It is not who we are as a nation.
MR SPEAKER: She says that she was absent Honourable Minister.
MR RALOTSIA: Yes. No, Honourable Makgato do you remember that we used to fill some forms like those of land board back then, you had to indicate if you are a Mokgatla, Mongwaketse or whoever. We realised that it was not good for the nation and got rid of it. Our colleagues that side still want us to do this. This man, who I am facing, he is a fellow Motswana and also my in-law.
My point Mr Speaker, is that we do have our own vision as a nation; it requires us as Botswana, to look back and reflect on ourselves in 2036 and see how different
Hansard No 19216
Thursday 15th November 2018 RESPONSE TO THE PRESIDENT’S SPEECHMotion (Resumed Debate)
we will be, how our nation will be like. When His Excellency talks about transformation, remember that it is mentioned in the vision that we want to change as Batswana, we want to build ourselves as well as move forward.
HONOURABLE MEMBER: Clarification.
MR RALOTSIA: You are the last one that side.
MAJ. GEN. MOKGWARE: Clarification. Thank you Honourable Minister. What you are saying is good, you are talking about the importance of Vision 2036. If you go through the statement of His Excellency what page or paragraph have you seen him referring to and quoting Vision 2036?
MR RALOTSIA: I will not go to the page sir, but the President is talking about a transformation strategy which is found in Vision 2036, Honourable Mokgware.
MR SPEAKER: Wait, Honourable Ralotsia.
MR RALOTSIA: Sir!
MR SPEAKER: They are saying procedure so, wait. Honourable Mmolotsi, what is your procedure?
MR MMOLOTSI: Procedure. Mr Speaker, I think Honourable Minister is debating as if everyone including the Hansard knows what he is talking about, which is a concern. That is why Honourable Makgato said that she is annoyed. Even though she is always irritated, today I understand why she feels like that because Honourable Minister’s debate is not coherent, he assumes that Hansard will understand that someone once said something. Therefore, let him clarify where he said that someone cannot defend their position, we do not understand what the Minister is trying to say and therefore, I think whoever is going to be reading the Hansard, will find it very difficult to comprehend what the Minister was debating. Thank you very much.
MR SPEAKER: Honourable Ralotsia, they are saying that they do not understand you.
MR RALOTSIA: Mr Speaker, those who want to comprehend will have to make reference to what I said yesterday because this is a continuation.
Honourable Mokgware, His Excellency talks to Vision 2036 at Paragraph 5. Am I allowed to quote Mr Speaker? Mr Speaker, in pursuit of this noble development objectives, we continue to be guided…
MR SPEAKER: Honourable Member please quote …
MR RALOTSIA: May I quote Mr Speaker?
HONOURABLE MEMBERS: … (Laughter!) …
MR SPEAKER: Yes, Sir, clarify where you are quoting from. Go ahead.
MR RALOTSIA: From the State of the Nation Address (SONA) Page 1, paragraph 5.
MR SPEAKER: Go ahead Honourable Member.
MR RALOTSIA: “Mr Speaker, in pursuit of this noble development objective, we continue to be guided by the pillars of our national Vision 2036 which provide for broad based, inclusive comprehensive and complementary national development”. Thank you very much Mr Speaker.
For us to achieve this as a nation, requires us as Batswana to know that vision is not for some people, it is for all of us as Batswana who have the same goals. I believe that …
MR SPEAKER: Honourable Madigele, we have not been quorated, we should be 21, I just realised that. Sit down we are now 21. Proceed Honourable Ralotsia.
MR RALOTSIA: Mr Speaker, I was saying let us not make this seem like it belongs to this individual and not this individual. I was really concerned when I read Honourable Boko’s speech when he said it is unachievable, he was basically excluding himself. He views it as one of his dreams which are unachievable. You can see that he is determined to distract our goals which as a nation we strive to achieve; Vision 2036. This is worrisome.
I believe that in order to achieve our goals, we have to focus more on our education. I am saying this as a teacher so I know the impact foundation has on a person. I hold the same sentiments as Honourable Molebatsi that side, it is like we are misinterpreting democracy. We allude that when you build up a person you do that in one aspect and forget about the other, we are not educating the whole person. Some things were taken away from teachers and schools which could contribute to building a whole person. When I was a teacher, one of the things we taught students were things such as hygiene not just the academic aspect. There was hygiene inspection. I can see that most of you are children, you know nothing about these inspections…
Hansard No 192 17
Thursday 15th November 2018 RESPONSE TO THE PRESIDENT’S SPEECHMotion (Resumed Debate)
MR SPEAKER: Honourable Member, there are no children here.
MR RALOTSIA: No, Wynter is younger than me Mr Speaker. He is a Member of Parliament of course and was a teacher just like me but he is like a child to me unless he claims he is my age mate of which he is not. The other things which were done in schools was to do classroom inspections. They were to account for the cleanliness of their classrooms. This has been taken away from children.
It is worrisome that we are raising children who know nothing about hygiene. They think that someone has to come and clean after them both at homes and school. In the past when schools opened, we knew that we had to do general cleaning of the school. Students played a role in cleaning… by the way, His Honour the Vice President is also a teacher. So students used to clean rather than hiring someone to do it and it was not about cleaning, we were building a person who could be responsible in future.
We have domestic workers at our homes and this took away the proper way raising of the child. Children do not know how to make up a bed, cook, wash dishes, sweep and all these things, some even term these chores as abuse. We will not reach 2036. We are taking these things away from children, there is a saying, “charity begins at home.” There is also another saying, “burn the rod when it is still young.” We cannot teach someone basic things like tying shoe laces when they are already old enough to work. These things are worrisome Mr Speaker, it is not our culture. We are denying our children the right to good things. These things deny our children the right to take a responsibility in the future. These things make it seem like we are raising a nation which is reliant on other people rather than being independent. We are not building a totally independent person, we should take these things into consideration.
Technology; I know that as Government we are focusing on it so that it is up to date, we should not find ourselves lagging behind by ten years. I know that most Members of Parliament have cellphones which are high in technology but they have no knowledge of using them so this shows that we are behind in terms of technology. Why are you looking at me like that Wynter because you know very well that all you do in your phone is to send messages, you never use other applications. It is important that we teach our children the significance of this technology so that we do not remain behind.
It is important to compare milestones of children in Botswana to those in other countries so that we do not find ourselves lagging behind as I was saying sir. A child in another country can do sums but our children fail to solve the same sums. These are the things we should consider when we talk about transforming this nation.
We must deliberately address issues of climate. It is clear that climate is not getting better it is getting worse by years. We must have a deliberate intention as a Government to address issues of climate. Our current climate has two extremes, it is either we have no rain or excessive rainfalls, you will hear weather reports that rainfall was recorded at 600 millimeters within 48 hours, this is too much. These are issues of climate change we need to address. The drought season is also extreme, the heat in Botswana, I suspect that one day, even these air conditioners that we have, will fail us. We may have nowhere to run to Mr Speaker, if we use experiences of other countries which experience serious heat wave like ours. The most surprising aspect is that it was not detected by the weather bureau, it suddenly hit. We should live by our pillars we made when we gained independence; democracy, self-reliance, development, we should not find ourselves deviating from things which have bonded us as a nation. We should not preach things which can cause conflict.
I would like to applaud Honourable Leader of Alliance for Progressives, Honourable Gaolathe’s statements.
HONOURABLE MEMBER: …(Inaudible)…
MR RALOTSIA: No, not Wynter, you want me to start a fight between two long term friends. The Honourable Member was talking about evil amongst us which is corruption and that if we are not going to fight it robustly in every way possible, to make those who want to do corruption think twice, it will devour us; particularly if it is associated with leadership. It could be true or not true. If at some point in time someone can associate it with the leadership, it means it will soon get out of control. We will soon find our country being controlled by corruption if I may put it that way.
HONOURABLE MEMBER: Clarification.
MR RALOTSIA: I said that one there would be the last one, my time is almost up my nephew, so do not worry.
Corruption is indeed worrisome. One Member of Parliament said those involved in it should be killed; I think it is Honourable Kablay. It is not wrong to review
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the penalties that can act as deterrents. I am not saying people should be killed, but reviews on the existing penalties should be made so that when one thinks of getting their hands dirty in corrupt practices, they would ask themselves if they would be alive the next day Mr Speaker. It is worrisome that there are people who have been employed to take care of Government and public assets, but then there are those who have employed themselves somewhere; opposing the intension of public asserts to benefit the nation the way the Government intends. When we look at other countries, I will not mention them by name, you know them, if you are a Minister as I am right now, after Honourable Matambo presents the budget, the funds allocated the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security would be deposited into my account, and the interest accrued would be mine. This would then interfere with developments because I will have the funds set aside long enough for them to accrue interest. It is corruption that has now become ‘normal’ in some countries. This is really worrisome.
Honourable Boko was talking about unemployment. I know there is a shortage of jobs in Botswana. He was being poetic as usual, as you know he can be poetic about many things. Honourable Boko cannot be seriously talking about unemployment and poverty, and not mention the word “Agriculture” anywhere in his statement. This is too serious, that a so-called President in waiting, as he calls himself, Batswana cannot go through with that error anyone; that a person who knows very well that Batswana’s livelihood is based on agriculture, fails to utter just a single sentence along those lines. At least binding himself by saying, he will improve agriculture. Besides the fact that this year I invited him to the Agricultural show, telling him “sir come and see so that you may be interested in talking to Batswana about agriculture issues.” We, in the Ministry of Agriculture believe that agriculture has the capacity to create employment and wealth. Therefore, Honourable Boko, a whole President of many parties, cannot make mention of that, and not even members of his parties reminded him to say ‘but do not forget to talk about agriculture sir, because Batswana make a living from it.’ It is worrisome; we have programmes like Integrated Support Programme for Arable Agriculture Development (ISPAAD) that assists Batswana with farming, manure, seeds and chemicals that kill weeds. Honourable Boko cannot appreciate such things. At least he should oppose as he always does, saying things are not working, that Batswana do not want them. It is very worrisome.
MR KGOROBA: On a point of clarification Mr Speaker. Thank you Honourable Member. He was my head boy at school by the way. Honourable Boko talked about cannabis, have you forgotten?
MR RALOTSIA: …(Laughter!)… I will not talk about cannabis; you will soon say I am talking about you Honourable Kgoroba.
HONOURABLE MEMBERS: …(Laughter!)…
MR RALOTSIA: Let me leave that point and talk about other issues.
Your Honour the Vice President, yesterday I bid farewell to Parliament, but if I will leave this Parliament…
HONOURABLE MEMBER: …(Inaudible)…
MR RALOTSIA: No, I am done with that one. Our journey ends at the same destination. You and I, our destination is the same; next year it is the end of the journey. I know that you are still getting ready. The BDP (Domkrag) will be sweeping clean, you will feel the pinch. Mr Vice President, I am worried, that I am leaving Parliament without the Molapowabojang road passing through Kgomokasitwa and Magotlhwane, going through Ntlhantlhe, it is the worst thing that can ever happen in Kanye North.
MR SPEAKER: Honourable Ralotsia, please address me because you will…
MR RALOTSIA: Sorry, sorry Mr Speaker.
HONOURABLE MEMBER: Minister, clarification.
MR RALOTSIA: No, there is no time. Mr Speaker, I am talking about people who have voted for the Botswana Democratic Party.
HONOURABLE MEMBER: Do not forget to talk about the Botswana Meat Commission (BMC) please.
MR SPEAKER: No, Honourable Salakae, order!
MR RALOTSIA: You should have asked Boko to say something about agriculture.
MR SPEAKER: No, you cannot do that Honourable Member. You have been taught the procedures of this House, why are you doing that? Do not repeat that please.
MR RALOTSIA: No, you should have reminded Boko to talk about the BMC Honourable Member. I do not
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know whether you still belong to his party.
Mr Speaker, the people of Kgomokasitwa, Magotlhwane, and Ntlhantlhe have always voted for the BDP (Domkrag) ever since it started ruling. I would like to ask for a road; they were once promised this road. It was mapped and there was a substantiation that indeed it is going to be constructed. So on top of the severe lack of water and other things that they need, the utmost need of these people is a road, especially because sometimes there are tempests of storms that occur in their area, you would find them in no man’s island, not being reachable except by helicopter. So people like these, that are loyal to me, they deserve some kind of recognition. They are the only people in my constituency who do not have a piece of tarred road. So a person can wonder, how do I respond to them when they ask me what it is they have done wrong?
HONOURABLE MEMBER: …(Inaudible) …
MR RALOTSIA: The problem is that Boko did not talk about agriculture.
MR SPEAKER: Your time is up Honourable Ralotsia.
MR RALOTSIA: Thank you Mr Speaker.
MR MMOLOTSI (FRANCISTOWN SOUTH): Thank you very much Mr Speaker for giving me this opportunity to also respond to the State of the Nation Address. As Honourable Gaolathe has said, we are not going to restrict ourselves to what Honourable Masisi has said, because otherwise we will miss what we are supposed to communicate with our people.
I want to, Mr Speaker, appreciate the fact that Honourable Masisi or His Excellency the President Dr Masisi came here to honour the fixtures and deliver the State of the Nation Address for the first time ever since he took over the presidency of this Republic. I want to appreciate that he came here, read his speech for three hours, and mentioned the few things that we can relate with especially that we know, like laws that we promulgated, that nearly caused civil war in this country; that is to say laws relating to Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) and the retirement package of the President. His Excellency Masisi came here to remind us of the number of laws that we promulgated Mr Speaker. I would like to thank him very much because it would help me as we progress to talk about them. Mr Speaker, I think as a country, we really need to up our game as far as our people are concerned. Our people are living in dire straits, poverty;
they are now helpless and do not know where to look because the Government has completely abdicated its responsibility of empowering Batswana.
We are facing a situation right now Mr Speaker, of unemployment; it has reached unprecedented proportions as young people graduate into the streets. Right now as I speak Mr Speaker, over 90 000 graduates are roaming the streets, some are at home doing nothing and the Government of the day is doing very little to address this particular problem. His Excellency Masisi talked about employment creation, it was not only him who talked about it. We know that the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) in their 2014 pledge card, promised that when they get elected, the first thing they are going to look at is employment creation. It is unfortunate because ever since 2014, what we see happening is the BDP closing mines, contributing to the closure of factories and other small businesses. We are surprised because part of the reason why they were elected into office in 2014 was because they promised Batswana that once they are elected, they are going to create employment. It is very unfortunate that today we talk about thousands of people who have lost their jobs. In Francistown for example; Tati Nickel Mine closed and 1 000 people lost their jobs. Not only Tati Nickel but also small businesses that depended or did business with Tati Nickel also closed down. In Francistown alone, more than 2 000 jobs were lost since 2014 and yet we know that BDP promised that they were going to create jobs for our people. We are now faced with young people who have lost hope in ever landing a job, facing desolation, have given up in life and are now into drugs because the Government of the day has diametrically failed to provide them with jobs or even to give them hope of ever finding a job. This is a situation in the case of Francistown of what I may call for the establishment of, “Economic Diversification Unit”; a unit similar to what is in Selebi Phikwe because Francistown just like Selebi Phikwe, was relying more on the mines they have closed. You wonder why the Government would open SPEDU in Selebi Phikwe and not do the same in Francistown, open an office and employ Mrs. Mohohlo and not do the same in Francistown, yet the people of Francistown are suffering in the same way as the people of Selebi Phikwe. We would like to appeal to the Government of the BDP to make sure that they give Francistown special attention and should consider a model like SPEDU, where we can talk about reviving Francistown, revitalizing the economy so that we may be back on track. Right now nothing is happening and
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people have given up. We are going to start seeing migration of people from Francistown to other areas and that is not what we want to see. I believe that I am talking to people who are listening because this is a very serious matter that should be taken very seriously.
Honourable Ralotsia will tell you that he has closed the Botswana Meat Commission (BMC) in Francistown, which employed a lot of people. Today when you move around Francistown, you will see so many empty houses that used to belong to BMC. Those houses are being vandalized, nobody is in them and the Government is going to spend more money in renovating and bringing them back to their original form because it looks like the Government does not care about the people of Francistown. Why would you let so many houses to be vandalized when a lot of people need them to stay in? The Government does not see anything wrong with it; they continue to look at those houses being vandalised and I really do not understand what kind of Government conducts business the way the Government of Botswana is doing. Mr Speaker, we require that the Government of the BDP should respond to these things because the people of Francistown are not very happy at all about the way things are happening.
One of the things that the Francistowners think should happen is that; we need a major investor who should come to Francistown and invest because if there is no investor in Francistown who is going to create jobs, then we must as well close everything. We cannot be taking all investors to Palapye, Selebi Phikwe or Gaborone, forgetting that we have a second city in the country. If you have closed BMC, Tati Nickel and small factories, why can you not look for an investor who can come and put up a big factory in Francistown, which can employ 500 to a 1000 people? We ask the Government of the day to try and be considerate so that our people can also find employment. We are also surprised because there are already business people in Francistown who are very established and want to increase their operations, but when they try to discuss with the Government to assist them with more land and some facilitation, the Government is not willing to do that. There is a specific investor in Francistown who is willing to increase his operations and employ more than 200 people, but the Government is throwing that particular investor from pillar to post while our people are roaming the streets, yet somebody who has money wants to increase his operations and give us jobs.
MR REATILE: Point of clarification. Thank you Mr Speaker, thank you Honourable Mmolotsi. Honourable, you are debating about a very profound issue on trying to attract potential investors to come and assist us with creation of employment opportunities. I am not saying it is like that but some people say that maybe Ministers face a challenge of failing to speed up things because those investors are of a different race from us. That is how some people see it. Tomorrow they are going to be used as examples as to why so and so is getting rich while people like Wynter are not getting rich. Honourable, how do we balance this one?
MR MMOLOTSI: Honourable Reatile, what you should understand is that investment does not have a colour; investment is investment. If we attract people who can come and help create jobs in this country, that is what we want. In fact, we are proponents of an idea that if we have serious investors who have a lot of money and can come and invest here, we should also make it easy for them to be citizens of this country because after all, they are creating jobs for our people, something that we are not doing as Batswana right now. We are not able to create jobs for our people and if we can get investors who can do that, why not? If you go to a country like Mauritius and you buy a property worth 1 million you are given citizenship, so why not do the same in Botswana, so that we encourage people to invest? I do not give a damn about colour, as long as people can come here and create employment for our people, that is what we want.
Let me proceed and talk about health care. Ever since the transfer of clinics from Local Government to Central Government the health care has collapsed, it has completely collapsed. We are experiencing a situation where clinics are unable to provide the necessary service to our people. I do not know the reason, but at least what I can attest to is that, when...
MR SPEAKER: Order! Hold on Honourable Mmolotsi. Honourable Salakae, how am I really going to teach the honourable, you cannot be shouting and conversing with the other person when you are sitting next to Honourable Mmolotsi with his microphone on debating. What really do you want me to say? Please be in order honourable. Continue Honourable Mmolotsi.
MR MMOLOTSI: When clinics were still under the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, Batswana were very happy about the service they were getting from the clinics. Today you can go to any village
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and city, nobody is happy about the provision of health services because of the transfer. Therefore, we think that the clinics should be re-transferred or transferred back to local authorities, where they can be managed closer to the people. Right now the complaint that comes all the time is that, our people go to the local clinics and do not get help or they get help and are told there are no tablets, medication; even a simple bandage. Those things are not easily found in our local clinics. One would wonder if we have that problem where do we expect our people to go, because we are representing poor people who are not on medical aids, who cannot go to private doctors. If they do not find paracetamol or medication at a local clinic, they are as good as gone.
The other problem that we experience, especially with the hospitals is that some people who come with very serious conditions; life threatening conditions are told, “okay, we are booking for you and you will see the doctor after six months.” These things have been going on for quite some time. I do not know whether the Government of the day is content with this kind of arrangement, but we think that people’s lives should be taken very seriously. The way we see things unfolding is very bad. Right now there are patients who have been hospitalised for more than two months, because they are waiting to be transferred to South African hospitals. We are told the ministry has not paid doctors and hospitals in South Africa, therefore we cannot take our patients there, meanwhile our people are dying in hospitals. This to me is serious negligence of duty, which I think the President should have talked about. It is something that the President should take very seriously, because you cannot have somebody who is very ill waiting to be transferred for two months. This is very unfair, I wish we could look at this thing very seriously, otherwise we are going to lose a lot of lives because of negligence by the Ministry of Health and Wellness.
MR SPEAKER: Why are you yielding Honourable Member?
MR MMOLOTSI: He wanted clarification Sir.
MR SPEAKER: That was a long time ago. Stand up and just continue. If you want to yield, when they ask, you yield.
MR MMOLOTSI: Mr Speaker, we still have that unfortunate situation where patients still wait for months and years to see doctors for life threatening illnesses.
As the Alliance for Progressives (AP), we envisage a health system that is patient-centric or people-centric, that acknowledges that patients must be assisted instantly by qualified personnel, that is passionate about their job and is motivated to perform to the highest level. That is what we think as the AP. We advocate that these things must be done, not lip service, we believe in action. It is unfortunate that right now the Government of the day is just talking and when it comes to implementation, nothing happens and rolls. We would like the Government to take the lives very seriously.
MR SPEAKER: Order! I could hear you putting a full-stop, just stop right there. We will continue at 4.30 p.m., let us take a break.
PROCEEDINGS SUSPENDED AT 4:00 P.M. FOR APPROXIMATELY 30 MINUTES
PROCEEDINGS RESUMED AT 16:30 P.M.
MR SPEAKER: Order! Honourable Mmolotsi, continue.
MR MMOLOTSI: Thank you very much Mr Speaker, let me proceed. Maybe before I do, let me welcome Honourable Mmatli, he is the first member of the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) from another faction (wa lephoi).
HONOURABLE MEMBERS: ...(Laughter!) ...
MR MMOLOTSI: I was talking about the health care system. I was about to get into the issue of health facilities in my constituency. What I want to say is that, we have three clinics in my constituency, none of these clinics is a 24-hour facility. I would like to plead with the Minister and this Government to try and convert one of these three clinics into a 24-hour facility. Like I said, I preside over a constituency occupied mostly by people who are unemployed. Therefore, for them to travel at night to places like Nyangabgwe and Area W, presents very serious difficulty, which is why I would like to appeal to the Minister to consider converting either Lapologang, Masego or Botswelelo clinic into a 24-hour facility.
Over and above that Minister, I want to also implore you to make sure that you tighten security at these health facilities. What happens is that, when these nurses and doctors are working, especially at night, criminals come disguised as patients and get inside the rooms occupied by doctors and nurses, where they actually rape or even
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hurt them one way or the other. That is why I think Minister, you should do something about the security of these health personnel, so that when they are working, they are safe.
MINISTER OF BASIC EDUCATION (MR ARONE): On a point of order. I was still listening to my colleague waiting for him to conclude his point so that I do not interfere. Earlier on, we work relying on the records, so, Mr Speaker, you cannot just allow Honourable Mmolotsi to say there is someone belonging to another faction, so I wanted to check if we do have records in your office that indeed there is a faction represented by a star and a dove (lephoi le naledi) because…
HONOURABLE MEMBER: …(Inaudible)…
MR ARONE: No, the dove. Do we have a party of that nature so that we check the records? Maybe some of us are behind the development; probably maybe you have been updated on that. Even the Honourable Member is just relaxed and he seems to be confirming that indeed there is the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) represented by a dove.
MR SPEAKER: I believe you heard me recently telling someone whom I suppose is Honourable Mmolotsi that I am not aware of the UDC represented by a dove. Those are his issues with Honourable Mmatli. If Honourable Mmatli has no complaint, let us leave it. Proceed Honourable Mmolotsi.
MR MMOLOTSI: They clarified to me. Honourable Keorapetse clarified to me that their symbol is a star while for the other faction it is a dove. They know better Mr Speaker. Anyway Mr Speaker, I was still talking about and about to conclude my point on…
HONOURABLE MEMBER: Elucidation.
MR MMOLOTSI…security of health personnel and I would like to yield for the Minister.
MINISTER OF HEALTH AND WELLNESS (DR MADIGELE): Thank you very much Mr Speaker and Honourable Member. Indeed, we are also worried Mr Speaker about the state of security of our healthcare professionals and there is something we are doing about it because we are currently at the finalisation stage of an Invitation to Tender (ITT) for the installation of the Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) in 24-hour clinics for starters, hospitals and clinics with maternity. And as we progress, we shall endeavour to provide to most of
the health facilities so that we enhance security in our facilities. It will not be enough Mr Speaker, but it will be a start in the right direction.
MR MMOLOTSI: Thank you very much Minister for that effort and I want to commend you for that. I hope that is not going to take long because we have experienced very painful situations in different facilities and we do not want a repeat of that in any foreseeable future.
There was an incident in Francistown; I am not sure whether you heard about it Minister in Nyangabgwe where a certain man who did not look well got into the hospital, went to the maternity ward and took a child; people had to run around yet there were guards. It was during Makgato’s era. Even the type of security that should be employed, especially at health facilities should be serious security companies. If you go to all the local clinics in Francistown and you look at the kind of security companies that are guarding those facilities, we are not safe Minister because even the morale of the employees is very, very low. They work for three months without pay. When they call their boss, the boss is nowhere to be found. So you cannot expect such people to be helpful especially under those very difficult circumstances.
Minister, one of the things that is a serious problem in Francistown is also shortage of staff. If you look at the real number of nurses and doctors against the establishment, you will also cry. The Francistown District Health Management Team (DHMT) has an establishment of 23 but we are running around 12 and you can imagine if we are even below half, it is really undesirable. Therefore, I would urge you Minister to make sure that we try as much as possible to recruit doctors and make sure that Nyangabgwe is sufficiently staffed, otherwise we run a risk of losing dear lives because of the Government decisions.
Mr Speaker, let me proceed and talk about education and say that our education system continues to churn graduates into the streets. Our young people go to the universities with high expectations, expecting that once they complete their education, they will be employed but that does not happen. Like I said earlier, we have over 90 000 graduates roaming the streets today. I think where we missed it as a country is when we failed to infuse this part of skills match Honourable Arone because right now we have got an oversupply of some professions and other professions are under resourced. For example, if
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you go to the schools, you have an oversupply of History, Mathematics, Agriculture and other subjects and we have got serious shortage of Physics and Chemistry teachers and so on and so forth. If we had earlier on looked at this issue of skills match during Honourable Venson-Moitoi’s and Honourable Masisi’s time, we would have matched these things so well so much that now we would not have these many graduates in the streets because they did not choose the careers well. So it helps to match the skills for the purposes of projecting how the future is going to look like. Minister, that is why I think this one should be looked at very seriously now to ensure that as we sponsor young people, we also look at the future and say in so many years when they graduate, these opportunities will be available and they will be able to work.
Furthermore, I would implore you Minister to make sure that we retool those who already have their first degrees so that we give them Master’s degrees in the specialised areas like Strategic Management, Marketing Management so that even if you have a straight Humanities graduate, that particular graduate can actually be converted into a Marketing person by giving them a Master’s degree in Marketing Management. That will help to at least take away a number of people from the street.
MINISTER OF BASIC EDUCATION (MR ARONE): Clarification. Thank you Honourable Member for your observations but I wish you would have also appreciated that skills mismatches is what brought about transforming Botswana Training Authority (BOTA) into Human Resource Development Council (HRDC). The retooling aspect that you are talking about; I thought you would appreciate Government’s efforts that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) graduates, a good number of them have been sent abroad more especially in India for retooling purposes and we continue to upgrade. For example, if you are talking about Social Science graduates into other professions at Master’s level, you may complain, I will agree with you maybe that we need to then increase the numbers. When I present, I will talk about some of the new initiatives that we are dealing with.
MR MMOLOTSI: Thank you Honourable Minister. Like I said earlier, we have over 90 000 first time graduates who are not working and because they are not working and there are no jobs, the best thing that we can do for them is to retool all of them so that at
least they are ready for anything. We can also export them to countries like South Sudan and other areas for opportunities.
Mr Speaker, let me also lament to the Ministry of Education for some of the things that I think the ministry is not taking seriously. The Ministry of Education Mr Speaker ought to up their game in as far as provision of resources and materials to schools is concerned. In the last eight years, we have experienced situations where five learners or children will share one book and because of that, young people have not been doing well in schools because of lack of resources. When I say this, the temptation, especially from Honourable Moitoi is to say, “Wynter you are speaking for yourself.” I am not; I am basically saying we must buy books for the learners because as teachers, it is not like we know everything but we know if students are provided with text books, where my knowledge ends, the text book will take over. That is why it is very, very imperative that we should supply or we should give learners text books.
The policy Minister, where teachers collect books at every level should be discouraged, because these learners ought to take these books until they complete their course. When they finally revise for the examinations, they need to refer to materials from the previous levels, and if you have taken their books, how do you expect them to refer? How do you expect them to revise? That is why I am saying, look at this policy and make sure learners are able to carry their books until they finish the course. If it is Junior Certificate (JC), let them carry their books from Form 1 to Form 3 and then they can surrender them after the completion of their course. If it is Botswana General Certificate of Secondary Education (BGCSE), let them take their Form 4 books into Form 5 and then return them after the completion of their course. That has been a serious lapse in the system which has made it very difficult for young learners to learn.
We should also Minister, try to move with the times, right now we do not expect teachers to be writing on the board, writing notes the way we did many years ago. The way Honourable Ralotsia did before you were born. We now want interactive white boards to be used in our normal facilities. We also want to see air-conditioned classrooms in public schools, because that will make teaching and learning conducive. Why do you think learners in English Medium Schools are doing well? They are doing well because the environment is conducive, they have air conditioners, they use interactive boards and therefore, learning there is much easier.
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Minister, you know we are both teachers, the issue of teacher-student ratio is a very serious impediment to teaching and learning. You cannot be expected to teach 45 to 50 learners and expect them to perform well because you cannot give them individual attention, you cannot give them tests and catch-up exercises all the time and as a result by the time you reach some stage, you have left most of them behind. That is why we must try to relook at the recommendations of the Revised National Policy on Education which actually recommended 1: 35. Minister, I know you can do that and I believe you will do it.
MAJ. GEN. MOKGWARE: Clarification. Thank you very much Honourable Member. What you are saying is very good. The danger with members from that side is that they like to compare and reference themselves as examples, if you were to use Honourable Arone’s example, he has survived out of how many? If you survive living in an environment which is not conducive, it is the same as when children …, we could also use Honourable Madigele’s example; 5 expectant mothers come to his hospitals, four newly born babies die while only one survives, surviving for some reason, then he assumes that the one who survived is the one who is okay. So it is a very bad example, he also pointed out that we went to school on foot during our time, that is very bad.
MINISTER OF BASIC EDUCATION (MR ARONE): On a point of order.
MR SPEAKER: Honourable Mmolotsi, take the floor first.
MR MMOLOTSI: I have taken the floor Mr Speaker.
MR SPEAKER: Honourable Arone, what is your point of order?
MR ARONE: No, I realised that Honourable Mmolotsi is on point when he talked about classroom environment. But now a General stands up only to give horrible examples, he is imputing improper motives. We never said that just because we walked on foot from Sekondoboro to Ngarange, that is what should be the status now. He is imputing improper motives, let him withdraw. Thank you.
MR SPEAKER: Honourable Arone, sorry for that, he is not holding the floor, you do not have access to him and that is how he will escape. Proceed Honourable Mmolotsi.
MR MMOLOTSI: Thank you very much Mr Speaker. Honourable Minister, one of the things which are posing as a challenge especially now is that, you see prize giving ceremonies are very, very important because they motivate learners, they positively reinforce learners. You probably know the theory of positive reinforcement and you should as a ministry provide a budget for prize giving ceremonies so that schools are not auctioned to the highest bidder, like we see happening. We want to completely discount politics from the schools and if we are not going to provide a budget for prize giving ceremonies, then we will have public schools politicised to a point where one day, you will be called as the Minister, where Honourable Balopi will be punched at Gaborone North. So such things Mr Speaker, I think should really be looked at because some of these things are bad. Minister let me move away from…
MINISTER OF BASIC EDUCATION (MR ARONE): Elucidation. Let me quickly say that you are on point Honourable. We already concluded that we are going to budget for prize giving in the next budget, for the reasons you have just mentioned. I pointed that out last time in case you did not hear. Thank you.
MR MMOLOTSI: Thank you very much. Let them go and give those pots which they usually distribute to people in rural areas.
MINISTER OF HEALTH AND WELLNESS (DR MADIGELE): Point of order. Thank you Mr Speaker. I am following very faithfully the debate by Honourable Mmolotsi, but now I got lost when he talked about Balopi, I do not know who that is.
MR SPEAKER: Yes, I also heard him say Balopi and something about a fist? Honourable Mmolotsi, who is that?
MR MMOLOTSI: Balopi Mr Speaker, is the man who is competing with Phuti.
MR SPEAKER: No, do not talk about him because he is not in Parliament.
MR MMOLOTSI: Okay, I will refrain from talking about him Mr Speaker although he is indeed competing against Phuti. Mr Speaker, I think I have done justice to this issue of prize giving ceremonies, but it is something that we must continue because it helps our learners.
Let me talk about our social welfare Mr Speaker, and say that the Government has been trying to take care of our destitutes, orphans, vulnerable children and those who
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are unable to take care of themselves because of their different backgrounds. What is unfortunate is that, the Government of the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) has dismally failed to ensure that people graduate from poverty, and as a result, these people are there and they will always be there. It is unfortunate that now this year in Francistown, in my constituency alone, more than 150 destitutes, poor children, vulnerable children, disabled people have been de-registered and they are now compelled to eat in the rubbish bins. I really do not know what you were looking at, but I would like to appeal to Minister Tshireletso and Minister Moitoi to look at this matter because otherwise you will find those kids dead because of hunger the reason being that they have been de-registered from these social programmes. Minister, I plead with you to investigate this matter because every day, I receive tons and tons of people coming to ask me for assistance. I would like to advise the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development to try and find a way of making sure that these people are given programmes that would ultimately graduate them from poverty, because I appreciate that the Government is using a lot of money to take care of these people. But you see, if you do not make them graduate, if you do not come up with deliberate programmes that will ensure graduation, then we will always have them in this category of poor people. Unfortunately, …
ASSISTANT MINISTER OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT (MS TSHIRELETSO): Clarification. Member of Parliament for Francistown owes the department, he long said that he will organise a meeting so that I can come and address them, he failed. Thank you.
MR SPEAKER: Yes, it is correction.
MR MMOLOTSI: Madam Tshireletso, you know very well that I have long awaited a date from you up to now, but anyway I will talk to you once again so that you can address these people in the constituency.
Let me talk about BCL and Tati Nickel. Mr Speaker, you know the closure of Tati Nickel Mine has brought so much misery in the lives of our people, because that closure has led to unemployment, helplessness and poverty. Like I said in the last sitting of Parliament, I plead with Government. I do not know what you want me to do, but I would like to plead with you to please clear loans for people who were employed by BCL and Tati Nickel. Clear their loans because those guys are now swimming in poverty, their houses and properties
have been confiscated and some of them as you know, have lost their lives, their children have dropped out of school, some of them are already in drugs. I have said even last time that, as we did in the 80s when we cleared loans for farmers during the time of draught, let us treat that matter like that one and clear their loans so that they can also live a normal life and I plead with you. If you want me to take out my jacket, I will do that as long as you can assist these people who are living in misery.
The issue Mr Speaker, that I also want to talk about is labour. Our people, especially in the private sector, are abused by employers. The Minister responsible for Labour and Home Affairs, if that ministry exists, should know that people have lost hope in the Ministry of Labour because people think that those guys in your ministry cannot be trusted and therefore they end up coming to our offices to seek assistance. Honourable Mabeo, stop wearing tight jackets while people are suffering.
HONOURABLE MEMBERS: … (Laughter!) …
MR MMOLOTSI: Honourable Mabeo, I would like your ministry to focus and zoom into security companies because they are abusing workers. If it means de-registering these security companies, let us de-register them.
MINISTER OF EMPLOYMENT, LABOUR PRODUCTIVITY AND SKILLS DEVELOPMENT (MR MABEO): Point of order. Mr Speaker, I am humbly pleading since Honourable Wynter Mmolotsi is my friend; he should withdraw those foul words. I mean if you can take a good look at him…No, let me not go there I might ruin my case. Let me stop there… (Laughter!) …
HONOURABLE MEMBERS: … (Laughter!) …
MR SPEAKER: Honourable Mmolotsi, Honourable Mabeo does not like what you said about him. Withdraw Honourable.
MR MMOLOTSI: I withdraw Honourable Mabeo. Please keep an eye on private security companies that are not paying people; that are paying people after three to four months. These companies are abusing our people who should pay rent at the end of the month, who take care of their children but they do not get paid. De-register them!
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DR P. BUTALE: Procedure. Thank you Mr Speaker. Although we have passed the issue, I would like to ask since honesty is key; are there not too tight? So that we know where the problem might be?
HONOURABLE MEMBERS: … (Laughter!) …
MR SPEAKER: Yes Honourable Butale but it is dangerous for you to challenge my rulings. Proceed Honourable Mmolotsi.
DR P. BUTALE: I withdraw Mr Speaker.
MR SPEAKER: Proceed Honourable Mmolotsi.
MR MMOLOTSI: Corruption Mr Speaker is consuming our country. If as a Government, we are not going to look at corruption very closely, we will find ourselves in a situation where there is nothing. Right now even the infrastructure that we have built in the previous four, five, six years is in a terrible state because of corruption. If you look at a similar infrastructure elsewhere, you will be surprised. I am saying the Government should look at the issue of corruption very seriously.
Last week, I saw a Gazette where one Chinese company was allocated or had won five tenders, straight tenders worth over a billion Pula without even unbundling. You need construction and you wonder why one Chinese company should be given so many jobs when we have local companies and other companies that could do the job and we only suspect that if corruption is the cause of this, then we have a problem.
We know how much money we lost at Morupule B and the Glass Project. We know how much money we lost in other projects and we really do not want corruption to continue and unabated because our country is slowly and slowly becoming broke.
On the issue of plots allocation Mr Speaker, I would like to plead with the Minister of Land Management, Water and Sanitation Services to make sure that people are given plots. In Francistown the waiting list at Self Help Housing Agency (SHHA) is more than 26 000. If you go to Mogoditshane, it is over 100 000, Gaborone is over 60 000. The Minister should make sure that land is serviced and given to people and if you do not have the capacity to service land, give people land, services will find them there because it does not help. People want to build and want to try and see what they can do while they are still employed and if you do not give them land
and you want to only give them land once they have retired, they will not be able to develop their properties and then we know you will confiscate those plots. So, please if you cannot service land, give them unserviced land and let them do whatever they can do.
Now, coming down to Paragraph 270, where His Excellency the President decried the relationship between himself and the former. I would like to say that; the problem we find ourselves in right now was born in this House. The problem was born in this House because we have a House packed with dishonest Members of Parliament of the ruling party. Very dishonest people who would come here, bring Bills…
MR SPEAKER: Honourable Mmolotsi, you are now imputing improper motives.
MR MMOLOTSI: Okay! Okay!
MR SPEAKER: Do not address other members in that manner, you are also part of this House.
MR MMOLOTSI: Okay! Dishonourable Members who will bring Bills to this House…
MR SPEAKER: Honourable Mmolotsi! Mind your language, you are a member of this House. Proceed.
MR MMOLOTSI: When…
MINISTER OF HEALTH AND WELLNESS (DR MADIGELE): Point of order. Thank you Mr Speaker. Further to your ruling Mr Speaker, you should rule that he should expunge it from the Hansard.
MR SPEAKER: That is the right thing to do Honourable Mmolotsi so that there can be peace and you should not address yourself like that. Rectify your statement, withdraw those bad statements and replace them with appropriate ones.
MR MMOLOTSI: Okay! Let me take back especially those words that I used earlier and say that as Members of Parliament, we are in a situation we are in because we do not believe in ourselves, we do things to satisfy the leader. Right now you promulgated laws here in Parliament when Phuti was still President of this Republic and today all of you …
MR SPEAKER: No, Honourable Mmolotsi, who is Phuti?
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MR MMOLOTSI: Okay! When the former President was here you were making laws…
MR SPEAKER: Honourable Mmolotsi, which former President?
MR MMOLOTSI: Former President Dr Seretse Khama Ian Khama. You presented Bills as Ministers and debated in the absence of former President Khama in this House.
HONOURABLE MEMBER: At night.
MR MMOLOTSI: You presented Bills at night, supported them and insulted us…When we tried to advise you but today since the former President Khama is gone, you have turned your backs against him and make it seem like he is the bad guy you did not agree with him. You should know that as we…
HONOURABLE MEMBER: Procedure.
MR SPEAKER: Wait first Honourable Mmolotsi.
ASSISTANT MINISTER OF INVESTMENT, TRADE AND INDUSTRY (MR GOYA): Procedure. No, Mr Speaker if you allow this to be on record people listening are going to think we insult each other in this House. I do not remember us insulting Honourable Members on the other side of the aisle. Can the Honourable Member please withdraw the statement that we were insulting them. We never hurled any insults back then, I was present. I thank you.
MR SPEAKER: Honourable Mmolotsi, no one insulted you so you cannot use the word insult. Use an appropriate word. Withdraw the word insult and replace it an appropriate one.
MR MMOLOTSI: Okay! I withdraw the word “insult”. You were telling us unsettling things when we tried to advise you to a make law that is applicable to everyone, not to a specific individual. His Excellency Mokgweetsi Masisi then said, “We are legislating for the lifestyle of the retiring President.” It is worrisome that since he agreed with legislating for the lifestyle of the former President Khama, he has now changed and he has put us in a situation that might see our country going into a civil war. Members of the BDP (Domkrag) learn and understand these things that if His Excellency Masisi asks you to make laws that you do not agree with and you end up agreeing nonetheless, you are going to find yourselves in trouble again. This thing
is going to continue forever. If you do not agree with how something is being done, you have to show that you do not agree. That is why when some of us did not agree with President Khama at the BDP (Domkrag) we parted ways with him. Even you, if you do not agree with certain thing allow yourself to stand out because right now we are in this situation because you agreed with everything that was presented to you. You agreed to everything, now look how we are in trouble.
Give former President Khama what you promised him, what you amended the law for, so that we deviate from these issues because you were tailor-making laws to suit you. Do not go around addressing rallies all over making it to appear as if Khama is a bad person. I do not think he is that bad. I think you are worse because you were hibernating wanting to be appointed Minister, seeking high offices yet knowing deep down that you are just lying low. This should never happen in this Parliament.
LEADER OF THE HOUSE (MR TSOGWANE): On a point of order. No, it is shocking that after a Member of Parliament makes a law here, they would then not understand what the law says. He is totally out of order because the law that he made is good, and it is in existence. It does not say what he is saying.
HONOURABLE MEMBER: What does the law say?
MR TSOGWANE: The law is straight and forward, it says “at the discretion of the President, he can ask for certain privileges from the sitting President,” so it was passed by this Parliament. You cannot divorce yourself from what Parliament has passed here. When a law has been made by Parliament, it belongs to Parliament not certain people.
MR SPEAKER: That is good counsel Honourable Leader of the House.
MR MMOLOTSI: If there were no promises or deals that were made, this law would not have been touched, and amended the way it was. There was a deal that said ‘yes, I will keep giving you certain things that you are going to demand.’ Honourable Tsogwane actually at that time no one even thought you would be the Vice President, so you were not included. Ask those who are closer and dearer, there were certain agreements in place. Please give Khama what you promised to give him; we do not want war in our country.
MR SPEAKER: Time up Honourable Mmolotsi!
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Thursday 15th November 2018 RESPONSE TO THE PRESIDENT’S SPEECHMotion (Resumed Debate)
MINISTER OF YOUTH EMPOWERMENT, SPORT AND CULTURE DEVELOPMENT (MR OLOPENG): Thank you Mr Speaker for giving me the opportunity to rise and comment on the President’s state of the nation address. As I rise, a Member who likes fighting others is taking his seat; he had previously said, “We left the party, so you should also leave.”
Anyway, Mr Speaker, let me start by thanking the people from a big constituency, the most solid and united constituency in Botswana called Tonota. Let me thank them for their good hearts, the love they have for their political leadership. I am proudly standing here. I would sincerely like to thank them for their good hearts because last time we were blessed in our Tonota constituency when a young woman had quadruplets. Wee then went to assess the situation at her home, and we realized that it was tough…
MR SPEAKER: Honourable Olopeng, I would like you to clarify the ‘young woman’ expression. Can a woman who gave birth to such a number of children still be called ‘young woman’?
MR OLOPENG: Mr Speaker, I am using the word ‘young’ because she is still in the category of youth, she is under 35 years. As the Minister responsible for youth, I am taking care of the…
MR SPEAKER: Wait a moment! Honourable Olopeng, I understand you. You were saying ‘young woman’ showing affection, “young person, young lady, my young man.” Please continue Honourable Member.
MINISTER OF NATIONALITY, IMMIGRATION AND GENDER AFFAIRS (MS MAKGATO): On a point of order. Thank you very much Mr Speaker. Mr Speaker, as women we love the Member on the floor. It does not mean that if we love him so much, he should use an expression that we deem is inapropriate. When you write in the Hansard, we do not know because it would be in written form. It will show that he was being affectionate when he said it. We are just saying that it can be perceived to be demeaning to the woman. With all due respect, please ask him to withdraw the words ‘young woman.’
MR SPEAKER: Order! Actually, a diminutive could be used to show love or affection.
HONOURABLE MEMBERS: …(Inaudible)…
MR SPEAKER: Yes, one could say young woman, young man, little person; those are words that show affection; when you say my little person, young woman,
my little man, not because you are looking down on them, but showing love and affection. He has clarified what he meant. Please continue Honourable Olopeng.
MR OLOPENG: Thank you Mr Speaker for listening attentively and within the context. Right now those who are complaining about these words…
MR MMOLOTSI: On a point of order. Mr Speaker, I think we are gravitating towards getting out of the decorum of this House. The Honourable Minister is talking about somebody, telling us how hard it was for her at her place. That person is not here to advocate for herself and confirm how hard it was indeed. If you have assisted someone Mr Speaker, I do not think you should come to Parliament and speak at the top of your voice telling us how much you have helped them. It is written in the Bible that we are not supposed to do that. I am asking the Honourable Minister to withdraw the words he just said of shaming somebody in Parliament. We always help people out there but you have never seen me boasting about it here.
MR SPEAKER: Look, let us do this; let us not disturb Honourable Olopeng. What Honourable Olopeng said, he read it from the papers, and I once read about it too. The reminder is not to dwell much on the poverty aspect, lest is appears as if you are shaming her, but please continue with your debate. There is nothing appalling that you said.
MR OLOPENG: I thank you Mr Speaker because you know your job very well. You can protect me when I am being snarled at, by people who never help anyone. Some are saying they once rendered some assistance, but I know they have never helped anywhere. They are the only ones who are always given assistance. Even if you could ask anywhere…
MINISTER OF HEALTH AND WELLNESS (DR MADIGELE): On a point of order. Thank you Mr Speaker. I am trying to protect women, I heard Honourable Makgato rising on a point of order, but she is being accused of snarling at Honourable Olopeng. I beg that he withdraws those words.
MR SPEAKER: Honourable Olopeng, they are going to hinder your debate. It means you should pay attention to the words that you use, words like snarling, brooding over, those are not proper words.
HONOURABLE MEMBERS: …(Laughter!) …
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MINISTER OF YOUTH EMPOWERMENT, SPORT AND CULTURE DEVELOPMENT (MR OLOPENG): Thank you Mr Speaker. Mr Speaker, continue protecting me like that because I can see that some people here are abusing point of order. I did not belittle anyone; I was speaking the Setswana we all know. Some people here are parents, they always show love by touching their children saying “my little thing! My little thing!” I am talking about people who understand what I am talking about.
Mr Speaker, let me proceed by thanking the Bahurutshi at Tonota constituency for showing parental love to these babies. Those four babies are from Tonota village. Even Kgosi Radipitse loves them so much. He visits them every day. We call them the “the four kings.”
DR P. BUTALE: On a point of order Mr Speaker. Mr Speaker, I humbly request that we remove the statement made by Honourable Olopeng from the Hansard regarding one woman whom he helped. That woman was assisted but now it seems like a song, which is being played everywhere. I have a feeling that if she could, she would say “Aa! Can you please take back your assistance? I will go back to the way I was living.” Let us eliminate that from the Hansard. The Bible tells us that when you offer a helping hand, it should remain there. It is not good to help someone and brag about it afterwards. Your reward should come from God, instead of talking about it all over. Let us remove that from the Hansard.
MR SPEAKER: No, Honourable Butale, do not draw us back. We had already talked about that.
Proceed Honourable Olopeng.
MR OLOPENG: Thank you Mr Speaker. Mr Speaker, I have one request, may we please stop opening the door that side when Parliament is on. We do not debate well ever since that door has been opened. I will continue thanking the people of Tonota Constituency for being compassionate. I thank the President for the state of the nation Address, our challenges as well as where we want to be. I am doing so because when the President addressed the nation, he touched on different issues. I am standing here wearing two hats, as the Member of Parliament for a big constituency called Tonota, which is a one party state and as the Minister of Youth, Sports and Culture. One of the things, which the President sent us to do as his Minister, was to assess issues which cause impediments or which impede delivery on the delivery of government programs.
Mr Speaker, I value that address and wish that the Attorney General Chambers could help assess these issues so that we may proceed with the provided programs. Things are not easy; our children do not have jobs even though the government is trying to make sure that through available programs the youth can have employment opportunities and contribute in the economy of their country.
As their Minister, some of our laws that are not favorable to them trouble me Mr Speaker. That is why I am stressing that the Attorney General Chambers should urgently revise what we have been sent to do by the President. If it commands us to change some Acts in this House, it is our onus as Legislatures to take that responsibility and amend some Acts in this House so that things can be made easy.
Mr Speaker., I can give you this example; sometimes the youth would want to start a business and the Local Government and Rural Development would come and inspect if the business area is abiding by their laws. Sometimes the youth will have already stocked the shop, fridges being full and still be disqualified because of the suspicion that there not enough ventilation. I would then wonder if the law cannot give a waiver for the youth to continue running the shop and address the ventilation issues raised and then they come back after 10 days to inspect. We have to amend some Acts, which are unfavorable to our youth, which are increasing the issue of shortage of employment. Sometimes you will find that one youth is a civil engineer and there are different stages to it; there is the Draftsmen, Architects and so on. Our laws stipulate that they should go and register at a certain place and even if the youth might want to go and build a toilet, he cannot do that unless he has registered yet there are registration fees, which he could have generated by building a toilet. The president stated that we should assess these things so that they can be amended.
I want to face the Honorable Members who are attorneys and say; it is high time we take the responsibility of making laws and put aside the reasons that we are better debaters and or that we know how to brag. We should come and present laws that are not efficiently helping with the governing of our country. We should come up with laws that will make sure that when Honourable Arone wants to extend a classroom urgently because of the congestion, we will be able to attend that issue. We should not only come here to condemn him as if he
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is the one who caused a shortage in classrooms even though we know very well that we can make other laws. It can be laws that affects the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Board (PPADB) Act, or that within his budgets he can be able to use funds immediately. This is our responsibility in this House. We are not here to show that some claim that they be better leaders. Where have they learnt how to govern because they have never governed anywhere?
MR KABLAY: On a point of clarification Mr Speaker. Thank you Mr Speaker. Thank you Minister. Sir, since you are saying that the President stated that you should amend laws, which are not of any benefit, why are you not amending the Land Act because people are not given plots? Try to find clauses in the law, which can be amended so that people can be given land to reduce the sufferings. Thank you.
MR OLOPENG: Thank you Sir. Those are some of the Acts we are talking about, let us act urgently and do what the President wants. He used the phrase, “I want Ministers to go and remove any impediments or any law that cause the impediments,” so present them from different ministries. We have submitted and that is why I mentioned that those who are in charge of this issue should look at it carefully. We want to see this progress-taking place urgently. Today Honourable Kably is talking about the plots and I agree with him that it takes time for people to be allocated plots. That is one challenge that we are faced with as the Ministry of Youth Empowerment, Sport and Culture Development and at the Tonota Constituency. These are some of the policies that we really have to review and see to it that the Land Board does what it is supposed to do.
MR NTLHAILE: Point of clarification. You are very right Honourable Minister. Minister, how about the issue of living wage because that is a Motion that was brought here in parliament and today you are talking about how the working conditions could be improved. You are one of the people who were against that Motion but today you are complaining, you want us to come up with a policy.
MR OLOPENG: I thank you Mr Speaker, thank you Honourable Member. Honourable Ntlhaile there is no need for a Motion, we have to move forward quickly. Your plan was just to table a Motion so that people in your constituency could say you did so. The other day the President was stating here that he has assigned a commission with a mission to look at the working
conditions of our people and I trust that they will not only be looking at that, the living wages too will be considered. That motion was going to waste our time Honourable Member. We are continuing to rule and we do have experience; so basically this is how we improve people’s lives. I also want to talk about the issue of Economic Diversification Drive (EDD) which is affecting our youth in our attempt to assist them with programmes such as the Youth Development Fund (YDF). The youth businesses have limited market. We know how volatile these businesses are because we fund them with a maximum of P100 000 to start a new business. It is important for us to understand the dynamics of a new business that has to compete with established businesses; that are already in the market. The youth have to be given special treatment, there is therefore need to discuss the Economic Diversification Drive (EDD) in this House and come up with solutions to buy local. Let us consider our tenders, if there is a tender that needs 500 loaves of bread in a village, and there are three bakeries there, we have to see to it that we divide the tender into 3 so that it could be shared. We all know that their businesses are still new therefore they cannot be able to take that amount of capacity. We should not allow them to fail because if they cannot take that capacity we will go somewhere else.
EDD encourages us to buy locally. I would like to therefore encourage every department that is listening today to know that it is their responsibility to make sure that the quality of our children’s products is improved by us. Last year when I was addressing the youth who had assembled a cellphone in Botswana, one of the financers asked,” Minister where will they market their business?” I assured him that there is business because as Ministers, Assistant Ministers, Permanent Secretaries (PS) Directors and Deputy Secretaries we use government cellphones. Therefore, we shall buy the phones that were made by this youth. If there is something wrong with them, we would go back to them and give them feedback. They will work on them until they get to the high standard. Our challenge is that since we have been an importing economy for a long time…
MR KGOROBA: Point of order. Mr Speaker, I need clarification because I honestly do not understand what this man is saying, ever since he stood up I have not understood anything he said. Mr Speaker maybe you can answer.
HONOURABLE MEMBERS: …(Inaudible)…
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MR SPEAKER: No, do not include me in your case Honourable Kgoroba. Listen wherever you are and I will do the same for myself. Proceed Honourable Olopeng.
MR OLOPENG: I thank you Mr Speaker. I am talking on behalf of my Ministry and the challenges that it is faced with, I therefore do not understand Honourable Kgoroba’s problem. We have quorum you can just go out and fix your problem and start concentrating, I know your challenge. You have been seated for two hours but there is enough quorum, you can just go out. Dr Moitoi will wait for you…
HONOURABLE MEMBER: I need clarification.
MR OLOPENG: It is one of the things…
MR KESUPILE: Point of clarification. I thank you Mr Speaker, thank you Honourable Member. As you are busy giving us examples you should also give us your vision on how you are planning to create employment for the youth because currently there is high rate of unemployment. Give us this plan, so that we could see how it is.
MR OLOPENG: I thank you Mr Speaker, you too Honourable Member. You are now tempting me to skip my bullet points, that one was still to come. I will however give it to you quickly. Honourable Member you will understand that when the President was here last time, he told us that the reason why he is touring the world is because he wants to lure investors to the country…
HONOURABLE MEMBER: …(Inaudible)…
MR OLOPENG: Mr Speaker, this person is disturbing me… so that business people could come to Botswana to invest and create employment for our people. We have stated several times that the mandate of the government is not to create employment. I can give an example, if the government could spend P300 million to build a hospital or school in your constituency, then our unemployed Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and Law degree holders would not get employed because they are not nurses or doctors. The Government will however have to spend P300 million in your constituency. Government is here to facilitate for the private sector to create jobs. This is why the President is touring the world to meet with the friends of Botswana to say, “come to Botswana we are a population of 2.02 million with the land of 500 000 square kilometres, we can give you land to invest, in return you can employ our people. That is the plan we have taking this country forward.
MR NKAIGWA: Point of clarification. I thank you Mr Speaker, you too Minister. Minister, do you believe as a Government, we have created a conducive environment for business in our country in terms of looking at the laws or policies that you have in place, that monitor the relationship between the employees and the employer? Do you believe that it is conducive to attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI)?
Lastly, do you not believe that as a country, time has come for us to start empowering our own local people rather than going out leaving our people who are capable. We have trained our people all we have to do is to empower them with funds so that they startup businesses that you are talking about?
MR OLOPENG: I thank you Mr Speaker, you too Honourable Member. A very good point. I am happy that you used the word FDI, at the same time you asked if Batswana cannot be given the opportunity to create employment for ourselves. Yes, we can, they too can. Do not forget that the government that I am talking about has organisations in place such as CEDA where Motswana could be funded to start up a business up to the tune of, I think P30 million. Honourable Nkaigwa, I am not aware of the laws that you are talking about, maybe it will fall within the category which he said they should be relooked which delays businesses or services to be taken to people on time. Maybe they fall within that category; I do not want to get into those because you did not specify those laws. I want to tell you that it is important that we should not think we can invest alone in our country. Where else could we have seen where people think they can do businesses alone without allowing any investors from outside?
MINISTER OF BASIC EDUCATION (MR ARONE): Elucidation Mr Speaker. The answer to his question as to whether we have created a conducive environment is a big yes. Just recently, when you ease issues of entering the country, when we are talking about visa regime Honourable Nthaile, that is the ease of doing business. This coming week, I think Honourable Minister; we will be introducing the issuance of visa on entrance in this country, and that alone is the ease of doing business in the country. Foreign investment is facilitated through Botswana Investment and Trade Centre (BITC), those are the laws that we have put in place to ensure that people set up easily in this country. I thank you.
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Thursday 15th November 2018 RESPONSE TO THE PRESIDENT’S SPEECHMotion (Resumed Debate)
MR OLOPENG: Thank you Honourable Member for clarifying those issues; we are easing even issues of entering the country upon entrance. Honourable Makgato`s ministry will soon be introducing issuance of visa at the point of entry, be it at the border or airport.
Honourable Members, let me proceed. I will yield as I move on because I am fearless.
MR SPEAKER: Why do you not say you are good hearted at least?
MR OLOPENG: What does pelokgale mean? Okay, I am good hearted, I like to yield.
I want to talk about vocational training; we should look and not use the one size fits all mentality. We have children who are artists. Right now, we have universities such as Limkokwing and Africa Film Drama Art (AFDA), I wish I can see talented children go to such schools without having to be subjected to requirements such as first Degree or Cambridge. Let us admit them because they are actors or actresses who have talent. They could be admitted, tested them and then be awarded certification
Secondly Mr Speaker, I have a special tribe in my constituency called the Zezuru. Bazezuru are born talented, they do woodwork perfectly and so on without having to go for school for it. Our system disadvantages them because they do not have certificates for academic qualification and therefore cannot tender for Government tenders. I request that a waiver be made for them, test them for a week or so and not in English because they have never been taught English. We should not test them through pythagoras this, you name it. They should be tested on their knowledge. We should not tell them about formulae of standard deviation, formation of xy over whatever. They should be tested on what they know and be given a waiver to be able to tender for Government tenders. Currently, when someone wins a tender, such a person goes to them and does the job for them.
MINISTER OF EMPLOYMENT, LABOUR PRODUCTIVITY AND SKILLS DEVELOPMENT (MR MABEO): Clarification Mr Speaker. I want to say that we have schools which we call rapid skill centres, and currently we have four of those. We recently launched one of them at Honourable Kwerepe`s constituency in Tsao. From there we went to Chadibe at Honourable Makgato`s constituency. Two others are at Moremaoto
and another at Thamaga-Kumakwane constituency in Thamaga. Through these rapid skill centres, we are trying to cater for people that Honourable Olopeng is talking about and mostly, we offer courses that run for three to six months.
On the issue of Bazezuru like he is saying, I have talked to Honourable Olopeng because I know there are many in his constituency and they have improved the economy of their area. Thereafter, I conversed with the Permanent Secretary (PS) and we are working on a plan to have some of our officers go to his constituency to run some crash courses that can take three or four weeks so that we can certify them for them to be able to make a living. Thank you.
MR OLOPENG: Thank you Mr Speaker and thank you Honourable Member. You and I will engage to appreciate what your two weeks syllabus will include because these people master their work and therefore do not need a course. They should not be taken to a course where they will be taught English and mathematics and later told that they have failed while they are masters in what they do. We will engage.
HONOURABLE MEMBER: …(Inaudible)…
MR OLOPENG: Yes, they should do practical only Honourable Member.
Let me move onto the next item because time is not on my side. His Excellency said there is going to be a review of the Youth Development Fund (YDF) where we will put effort on funding the youth as groups which we can also call cooperative model or cooperative approach. For example; we have had the youth starting their businesses as individuals and there is confusion among the public and even in this House that youth businesses are not successful. The success rate of businesses under the Youth Development Fund (YDF) is 85 per cent today as we speak. So the main challenge that you cannot see is that you think that when it is said to be 85 per cent, all the youth will be working. We tend to forget that this programme is such that it should employ at least one person, then then the applicant. Since 2008 to date, it has been growing up to where it is right now and it has funded about 5 000 businesses and 85 per cent of these businesses are in operation. In most instances, these businesses have employed at least two people, and this implies that these businesses may have employed 10 00 youth yet we need many job opportunities. This is why we now need to use the cooperative approach where we
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can take about five or ten youths, form a cooperative which we will then fund and hand over to them as turnkey. Why turnkey? We still have a challenge with the turnaround time of youth owned operations. We still take…
HONOURABLE MEMBER: Clarification.
MR OLOPENG: I will give you Honourable. Why Turnkey? We are still challenged by our turnaround time in youth offices. We spend long time at the ministry because when they get outside, they are taken through assessment in constituencies, they involve staff from other ministries. We have a Committee which is called District Economic Development Committee(DEDC) it is for Judges and Senior Assistant Council Secretary (SACS) so that they can assess these applications together, including the Ministry of Agriculture to detect if that area is suitable for maize production or whether the borehole has water. At times, we fail to contact them within a short period of time because they have other things to take care of. As a result, we consult the youth after a long time, that is why you will find out that within three or four months, when we go back to them their application has been approved, that means that prices would have changed, the child will then run short of funds in the sense that what we gave to him because we looked at the proposal that they submitted before. That is why we want to take responsibility as a ministry and make sure that when a youth wants to do fish farming then we can make four ponds as well as give them equipment to assist, teach them and then hand the project.
MR NTLHAILE: On a point of clarification. Thank you Minister. You are on point. Please update us Minister because you are on record, you said on this House that you will make our youth millionaires. How many have you made so far?
MR OLOPENG: Thank you Mr Speaker and Honourable. It is clear that you do not understand when I talk about a millionaire that is why you keep saying “you will make millionaires.” When you make a millionaire, as you say that I will make millionaires, it is not an item but a process. For your own information, I have 15 mentees that I work with as we speak. I cannot talk about their wealth because they did not inform me about it, it is a good thing though in case you ask them for donations.
HONOURABLE MEMBER: Clarification.
MR OLOPENG: Relax Honourable, I will give it to you. Have you ever gone outside? All we wanted to do was to show that our children have the capability and I found out that they have it. I am going to declare how much their value is only when they give me permission; these 15 that I am mentoring today as we speak, they did not give me permission. Let me proceed.
HONOURABLE MEMBER: Clarification.
MR OLOPENG: I will give it to you Chilis, just wait.
Mr Speaker, this cooperative model, let me encourage Members of Parliament (MPs) who are here, those who have constituencies that the way this model is going to function, I can give an example of Tonota. In Tonota we are in the process of applying for a cooperative which is called Tonota Community Empowerment Cooperative (TOSEC). We have listed the minimum of 25 businesses. We are negotiating with departments which we have in Tonota. Those who own farms, are waiting for us to conclude so that they can give us. We already talked to the Ministry of Agriculture; in principle they agreed; they are going to give us a farm which is next to dams where they drain sewage water so that we can plant maize and sunflower, we will use sewage water for irrigation.
MR SPEAKER: Honourable Olopeng hold on. There are bilateral meetings and they are making noise, please minimise your noise Honourable Members.
MR OLOPENG: Thank you Mr Speaker.
MR KGOROBA: On a point of order. Mr Speaker, Honourable Olopeng is misleading this House. In this country, we are still struggling to establish small and medium enterprises by the youth. We are even not beyond 50 percent of achieving that yardstick. When we are failing the foundation or the primary objective of empowering the youth, how do we jump all these steps to establish millionaires? This is misleading because the Honourable Minister knows very well that his ministry is still struggling or even failing in as far as establishing the small businesses for the youth is concerned and now he is talking about millionaires. This is ridiculous!
MR SPEAKER: Honourable, you could have engaged him with clarification or correction. If you say point of order, then you involve me on that. Discuss it among yourselves. Proceed Honourable Olopeng.
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Thursday 15th November 2018 RESPONSE TO THE PRESIDENT’S SPEECHMotion (Resumed Debate)
MR OLOPENG: Thank you Mr Speaker. I think Honourable Member has a challenge I gave him permission to go out and then come back and re-position himself.
I have been saying it right here that the success rate of Youth Development Fund (YDF) businesses is 85 percent and he can afford to stand right in this House and say that my ministry is even failing to create small businesses. What exactly is he referring to?
MR NKAIGWA: On a point of order. Mr Speaker, the Honourable Minister is misleading the nation. I do not believe the statistics that he is giving us is true. He has never even come to this Parliament to tell us on the success rate of the YDF. I brought a question here in this Parliament as a Minister’s Question, asking for the success rate of the YDF only to be told that there have never been statistics in regard to the young people that have been funded in this country. So today for the Honourable Minister to stand before this Parliament and say the success rate stands at 85 per cent, he is actually misleading the nation. He should withdraw that statement.
MR SPEAKER: I asked you not to involve me in your debate with point of order. Let it be clarification, correction or elucidation and involve Minister.
MR OLOPENG: Mr Speaker, I think Honourable Member has been having a nap in this House. He forgot that he brought a question here and does not remember how it was answered. In 2015, we sent a team across the country to assess the businesses of youth from the east, west, south and north of Botswana. We have this information in my ministry; I answered a lot of times in this House about this success rate. I also said that we should not compare the success rate of these businesses and the impact on unemployment. I just explained that a single business is allowed with guidelines to hire at least one person. You are wasting my time.
Mr Speaker, I am almost done with sports then conclude with matters that pertain to my constituency. With sports sir, as His Excellency mentioned, we are moving forward, we are collecting medals. We are trying as a Government …
MR SPEAKER: Hold on Honourable Olopeng. Honourable Tshireletso, Honourable Molao, Honourable Goya, Honourable Majaga and Honourable Venson-Moitoi you are making noise.
MR OLOPENG: Thank you Mr Speaker. Mr Speaker, we are making progress with sports but let me give clarification as I have seen from the internet people saying that we stopped Constituency Tournaments. Let me point that it is not true, we did not stop Constituency Tournament, they will take place as arranged. It was a scam because we were still having discussions but others decided to spread lies about it.
Let me conclude Mr Speaker by saying that in my constituency, Shashe-Mooke, we have water challenges…
HONOURABLE MEMBER: Clarification
MR OLOPENG: I will give it to you, I am left with one minute. We have challenges with water and I want the residents of Shashe-Mooke to know that I will not get tired until they have water because Water Utilities Corporation (WUC) tried to bowse but it is still difficult. We are discussing with them and making decisions, at least in the next two months we would have drilled a borehole at the constituency because we have already sourced all the necessary equipment to ensure that as Tonota Constituency Shashe Mooke residents have access to water. On issues of health your Honour…
MR REATILE: Clarification. Thank you Mr Speaker. Before Honourable Member can talk about health, can he enlighten us on the reasons that Water Utilities Corporation (WUC) availed as to why Shashe Mooke residents do not have access to water, Shashe dam is close to them, to the extent of you resorting to look for a borehole for them? What is their problem?
MR OLOPENG: Thank you Honourable Member. It so happened that the previous design, pipes passed through Mathangwane to pour water in Shashe Mooke reservoir. These are the issues I deal with daily in Kgotla meetings, Let me thank Honourable Mzwinila because I was talking with his staff this week and they said there is a consultancy that is on, it is going to take into consideration the fact that from Gerald Estate to Shashe Mooke is about 4 km so that at least they can take a pipe from there to Shashe Mooke. That is why I am saying I am not going to rest until there is water, we would rather drill a borehole for Shashe Mooke residents.
Health; National Development Plan (NDP) 11 has included the Tonota hospital. I was reading through the statement and I thought although Tonota hospital was not mentioned here but it is still in NDP 11 because we know that it can take up to six years.
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Mr Speaker, I would like to encourage Tonota residents to be hopeful and know that the President has established a taskforce which will deal with animals that are troubling them. At Motloutse fields they have been troubled by elephants a lot and as one of the members of that taskforce I promise that action will be taken, elephants will be taken back to the parks away from farms and fields so that people can live peacefully.
Our Information Communication Technology (ICT) graduates, Honourable Mokaila indicated that he is no longer going to talk about…
MR SPEAKER: Order! Honourable Olopeng, stop on that point, you will proceed on Monday.
MOTION
ADJOURNMENT
MINISTER OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT (DR VENSON-MOITOI): Allow me Mr Speaker, to move that this House do now adjourn.
Question put and agreed to.
The Assembly accordingly adjourned at 6:00 p.m. until Friday 16th November, 2018 at 9:00 a.m.
Hansard No 19236
Thursday 15th November 2018 RESPONSE TO THE PRESIDENT’S SPEECHMotion (Resumed Debate)
HANSARD RECORDERS
Mr. T. Gaodumelwe, Mr T. Monakwe, Ms T. Kebonang
HANSARD REPORTERS
Ms T. Rantsebele, Mr M. Buti, Ms N. Selebogo, Ms A. Ramadi, Ms D. Thibedi, Ms D. Pheko, Ms G. Baotsi, Ms N. Mokoka, Ms B. Pinaemang
HANSARD EDITORS
Ms K. Nyanga, Ms C. Chonga, Mr K. Goeme, Ms G. Phatedi, Ms B. Malokwane, Mr A. Mokopakgosi, Ms O. Nkatswe, Ms G. Lekopanye
Ms T. Mokhure, Ms B. Ratshipa
TRANSLATORS
Ms B. Ntisetsang, Ms. M. Sekao, Ms. M. Rabotsima, Ms. B. Mosinyi, Ms. V.Nkwane, Ms. N. Kerobale, Ms K. Alepeng, Ms T. Motsau, Ms O. Phesodi
LAYOUT DESIGNERSMr B. B. Khumanego, Mr D. T. Batshegi, Mr K. Rebaisakae
