18 Jun 2013

Government has increased Ipelegeng funds from P530 million in the last financial year to P580 million this financial year, says Vice President, Dr Ponatshego Kedikilwe.

He said an additional 2 000 beneficiaries were added to the 613 805 beneficiaries for this financial year. Dr Kedikilwe, who is also Mmadinare MP, was addressing a kgotla meeting in Foley on Monday.

He said the Ipelegeng programme was not meant to provide permanent jobs but its main objective was to provide short term employment support and relief. He further pointed that since the inception of ISPAAD programme in the 2008/09 financial year, food production increased by threefold.

Since 2008, he said, 104 000 hectares were ploughed while 345 000 hectares were ploughed in 2012. While P220 million was budgeted for the programme during the 2012/13 financial year, he said P250 million had been budgeted for this financial year.

He therefore challenged Batswana to be committed since government had invested a substantial amount of money in the programme. He further pointed out that Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) was still a major threat to the cattle industry more especially in areas along Botswana-Zimbabwe border.

Therefore, Dr Kedikilwe said Batswana should come up with ways of curbing FMD spread. Previously, he said, cattle in Robelela and Tshokwe were culled while small stock in the Zone 6 area would be culled as well.

On other issues, the Vice President called on parents to play an important role in their children’s education and livelihoods. He encouraged parents to work in hand in hand with teachers through the parents teachers’ associations.

The Vice President said parents and teachers were responsible for youth development and empowerment. Through the Youth Development Fund, he said 2 838 projects had been funded at over P256 million and 4 653 jobs created.

He said CEDA had funded 228 youth projects on agriculture adding that P86 million had been used for field crop production while 829 jobs had been created since 2008.

For the 2012/13 financial year, he said 38 youth companies were awarded tenders for maintenance of government facilities and that P24 million was spent on the projects. He said government hads so far awarded 44 youth building construction companies tenders worth P99 million.

“Government is committed to empowering the youth of this country more so that they are the leaders of the future who should take this country to another level,” he said. ENDS