Africa-Press – Botswana. The Ministry of Local Government and Traditional Affairs has embarked on a process to redefine and enhance the role of local government.
The process is meant to have functional, agile and efficient local authorities that deliver the vision and programmes of the government, and fulfil them in terms of offering quality public services such as developing communities.
The Minister of Local Government and Traditional Affairs, Mr Ketlhalefile Motshegwa said this at the second ministerial press briefing on Tuesday in Gaborone. He said his ministry has made commitment to make quarterly public updates as they had the responsibility and accountability to take people on board on the mandate bestowed on them by the new government. The minister said government promised Batswana a democratic state, human rights-based, and inclusive economy that worked for all.
“Our ministerial mandate is to manoeuvre to fulfil the framework of operation outlined by the new government. By that we continue to provide support for local authorities and also to ensure that tribal administrations institutions across the country are effective and efficient,” he said.
Mr Motshegwa said the ministry’s mandate include among others, the development and monitoring of applicable policies and legislations in relation to local government and traditional institutions. He said the ministry was also responsible to develop, promote and monitor mechanisms and systems to enable integrated service delivery.
In terms of summaries of the strategic actions they were to deliver as a ministry, Mr Motshegwa said first was the issue of decentralisation, where they seek to embark on pragmatic process of revolution and decentralisation of power from central government to local authorities, since by virtue of proximity to the people, local authorities were in a better position to offer quality public service to the people. “Decentralisation is a way of nurturing and enhancing democracy so that we have participation of the people and for them to be offered quality public services,” he said.
Amongst other strategic actions they have also the issue of ministry leadership forum, where they align the organisational culture of the ministry to suit the vision of the new government. “This we do in an agile, high performance ministry that contributes tremendously to the developmental agenda of the country,” he explained.
Mr Motshegwa said government would not succeed if employees were neglected and not involved in terms of their rights, staff moral and motivation. He said as they geared for result-oriented productive ministry, they bear the responsibility as the employer to ensure that they respected the rights of the employees, according them better service conditions, welfare and motivation so that in turn employees could provide the necessary productivity.
On Bogosi issues, minister Motshegwa said appointments have been made and most issues resolved since they involved dikgosi through mediations and interventions, where they deployed some of experienced dikgosi to mediate in disputes.
He further said they also made interventions through the tribal administration, the idea being to ensure there that there was harmony and stability in Bogosi institutions. When welcoming members of the media, the Acting Permanent Secretary, Ms Baipolelang Photlokwe said the purpose of the briefing was to share with the members of the media the progress the ministry has made since the new government. She said it was also to share the progress in terms of the implementation of projects and programmes including the strategic actions of the ministry.
Ms Photlokwe said the ministry would continue to share with the media its plans for the idea was to reach Batswana in terms of what the ministry wanted to achieve and to do for them.
When thanking members of the press, the Deputy Permanent Secretary – Projects, Tshepho Kebakile said during the quarterly updates, Batswana would be informed on the progress of the ministry.
Source: dailynews
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