31 Mar 2025

President Advocate Duma Boko has assured the nation that government is committed to resolving the electricity crisis.

Of recent, the nation has been grappling with widespread power outages, due to breakdowns at Morupule B power plant. When addressing a kgotla meeting in Letlhakeng yesterday, President Boko said while repairs were underway at a 600MW thermal power station, government might resort to importing power from Eskom in South Africa. However, he said this effort was complicated by an existing debt of P2.7 billion owed to the South African facility. He further said this was also an opportune time to construct another power station as Morupule B, built with more P16 billion, had failed to deliver.

This, he said would be a long-term solution as it would take about 18-24 months to construct a power station.Also, President Boko pointed out that due to frequent power outages, the country would be faced with water cuts. He said water was powered by electricity in order to be distributed across the country. Meanwhile, President Boko further said poverty was a violation of human rights and showed failure on the part of government.

He said as government was centred on human rights, it would ensure that every citizen enjoyed the fruits of the nation.Already, he said they had made several pronouncements as a way to help curb poverty. Amongst these, he said, was the increase of Old Age Pension allowance from P830 to P1 400 and the allowances for brigade students from P300 to P1 900 to be at par with other tertiary students. President Boko also said they had not renegaded from its promise of P1 800 Old Age Pension and the P2 500 tertiary allowances saying these would be done gradually as the economy improved.

He said these, together with P300 allowance given to lactating mothers were meant to cushion Batswana from abject poverty.On challenges facing education such as decline on academic performance in Letlhakeng, President Boko said that illustrated failure on the part of government.

He said the Junior Certificate (JC) results stood at 25 per cent pass in 2020 but in 2024 it declined to 18.5 per cent.

“These are not just statistics but we are talking about people who have been denied their rights,” he said, adding that BGCSE results had also declined from a peak of 31.31 per cent in 2021 to 18.5 per cent in 2024. ENDS