Africa-Press – Botswana. Public officers have been implored to exercise patience and accord government time to address their concerns and requests.
President Advocate Duma Boko told public officers in Tsabong on Monday that government was presently seized with restoring Botswana’s economy, a daunting task that he said made addressing challenges requiring funding difficult.
While he assured them that government was not blind to their requests, President Boko said the country’s ailing economy remained a barrier to efforts that could be decided upon and adopted to address public officers’ pleas.
“The urgent task of government is to restore the economy and it is a daunting task to restore a non-performing economy,” he said.
The President however assured them that concerns not requiring funds would be acted upon as a matter of urgency. President Boko elaborated that re-vitalising the economy, which he said government was currently engaged in, entailed doing away with processes that delayed and impeded progress in government service delivery mechanism.
“We are going to be creating efficiencies and doing away with wastage which currently accounts for 37 per cent of total government expenditure,” he said.
Reiterating that government would ultimately address their concerns for which expending finances was a prerequisite, President Boko said it was disturbing that Botswana had for decades been operating a low-wage economy in the hope that it would attract foreign investors.
Instead of delivering what it was created for, he said such an economy had instead created a category of the working poor. Thus, he informed officers that building a vibrant economy lay at the core of efforts to build an adequately paid public service.
Despite the unfavourable working conditions that Tsabong District public officers performed their duties under, Adv. Boko said it was heartwarming that they remained unrelenting in giving Batswana the best possible service.
Representative of public officers Mr Mpho Molelekwa pleaded for President Boko’s intervention in key areas, one of which he said was the urgent need to implement the P4 000 living wage.Mr Molelekwa said doing so would cushion employees on lower pay categories against the economic hardships occasioned by their low salaries.
Mr Molelekwa also requested government to address stagnation in the public service, saying the bulk of officers had stalled at C1 salary scale for years with no hope of progression. On education, he called for the unbundling of Tsabong Unified Secondary School into a junior secondary school and a senior secondary school.
He said running the school in its current state was cumbersome due to the bloated learner population and shortage of funds to meet its funding requirements. Mr Molelekwa also complained of constant network connectivity outages in Tsabong District.
The scenario, he said was exacerbated by the internet node servicing their region being located in Jwaneng, resulting in power outages in the mining town always cutting off their network reception. Mr Molelekwa said the slow bandwidth and outages negatively affected service delivery as government network-based services were often unavailable.
Council secretary for Tsabong District Council Mr Mosimanegape Mogorosi thanked President Boko for giving public officers in the district the platform to engage with him on their day-to-day experiences while serving the nation.
Mr Mogorosi said with public officers in the region being committed to excellence in their discharge of services, it was encouraging that government was committed to addressing the challenges they had raised.
“We are a public service that is agile and is ready to help you move with the transformation that you are preaching,” he said as he assured the president of their loyalty and support.
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