Africa-Press – Botswana. Utilisation of private vehicles, as a general principle, is risky as government will not ascertain the road-worthiness of such vehicles, the Assistant Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Mr Mabuse Pule, has said. Responding to a question in Parliament, Mr Pule said that being the case, clients were assessed using the limited transport available hence no client was subjected to suffering.
He said critical cases were given priority during assessment adding that in the period between April and October 2023, 655 cases were assessed. Mr Pule said there were currently 11 vehicles allocated to the Department of Social and Community Development (S&CD) in the Okavango District, adding that six were in good condition, one was on and off the road, whilst four had currently gone for routine service.
Also, he said there was a cumulative of 2 671 pending cases across programmes, to be assessed since 2022 to date.“As you might be aware some communities in the Okavango were heavily mobile and thus difficult to reach or find when social workers visit them for assessment.
However, this assessment backlog will be cleared by the end of December 2023,” he said.
Further, the assistant minister said the ministry recently capacitated the Okavango District Council (ODC) by appointing a Chief S&CD officer and other critical positions. To fast-track the assessment such that speedy conclusions of all pending assessments were addressed, he said the ODC had embarked on cluster assessments, where a pool of social workers and other resources had been clustered and this started November 1 and would be completed by December 31.
Mr Pule said the ministry would continue to employ such strategies, whilst continuing to advocate for an increase of funding to resource the districts to avoid assessment backlogs in future.
Okavango MP, Mr Kenny Kapinga had asked whether it was the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development’s policy that social workers were not allowed to use private transport offered by clients to attend to cases. He also wanted to know the number of vehicles availed to social workers in the current financial year in the Okavango District, the number of cases pending assessment and for how long.
DAILYNEWS
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