Daily News does not publish on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays. Please email your comments to DailyNews@gov.bw

From 6 July 2006, a graphic version of the current edition is available at the Daily News Online web site.

Archive by year

BOPA News on 26 March 2003

Opening Fairground Mall in Gaborone, Mogae described the project as a positive development since the shops “will compete for customers with others in different parts of the city”.

“They (owners) will, of course, pay tax on their profits while consumers will pay value added tax (VAT), thus contributing to government revenue.” The P40 million shopping complex created about 500 jobs during its construction.

Mogae said the developer, Associated Investment and Development (AIDC) owned by specially elected MP Satar Dada and family, had afforded Batswana opportunities to venture into businesses.

“I commend AIDC for its commitment to empowering Batswana by enabling them to enter the business world and contribute to the growth of the economy. In this respect, AIDC has ensured that first preference tenancy was given to Batswana.” The mall has accommodated 26 citizen-owned businesses, 10 joint venture companies and seven non-citizen owned firms. Owners of many shops in the mall raised their funds from the Citizen Entrepreneurial Development Agency (CEDA).

Mogae urged Batswana, in partnership with foreigners, to take the opportunity and tap business expertise from their partners and bridge the financing gap. The president reminded business managers to undertake periodic market research to determine consumer needs.

He reiterated government’s commitment to ensure consumer protection, as evidenced by the promulgation of the Consumer Protection Act.

For his part, Dada reiterated his call for citizen economic empowerment, explaining that the mall was developed with citizens in mind.

“Citizen empowerment continues to be our top priority as Batswana must be in charge of the country’s economic destiny,” Dada said. He said the majority of entrepreneurs accommodated in the mall and employees were women.

“The publicity and public relations aspect is undertaken by a woman. A woman-owned company manages this complex,” he explained.

Some of the shops such as Queenspark, Loads of Living and Polo are new.

Others are Truworths, Superspar, Woolworths and Discount Centre.

Presenting the Employment Amendment Bill to Parliament, acting labour and home affairs minister Lesego Motsumi said the amendment will bring the act in conformity with the provisions of International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention that calls for the protection of workers’ claims in the event of the insolvency of the employer.

The bill provides that in the event that the employer becomes insolvent, an employee’s claims arising from employment shall be payable out of the asserts of the employer before the non-privileged creditors are paid their share.

The protection covers three months’ wages, leave pay and severance benefits, payment as a result of work performed during holidays within a period of 24 months prior to the insolvency or employment termination.

The amended act will also allow the payment of the amount due to the employer in respect of other types of paid absence for a period not less that three months prior to the insolvency or employment termination.

The bill also seeks to clarify the functions of the labour advisory board such as, to advise the minister on any proposed legislation, rules, codes, guidelines or model agreements relating to dispute prevention and resolution.

Commenting on the bill, Tonota MP Pono Moatlhodi said he is happy that the law is on the side of the employees who have always been oppressed by their expatriate employers.

He said the P100 compensation for workers when the employers were insolvent was a mockery, lamenting that most employees have been unfairly fired at the time when they were approaching the maturity of their severance pay.

Moatlhodi alleged that at Shoprite people are sometimes made to work months as casual labourers for a long time to deny them benefits such as leave days and increment.

Casual labourers are also said to be risking their employment in the event that they fall pregnant, as their conditions do not allow it.

He advised the minister to sometimes pounce on the enterprises and make thorough assessment of their businesses.

Nehemiah Modubule, opposition leader and MP for Lobatse, said he hoped that the amended act would reduce instances of employers denying the employees their rights.

Michael Mzwinila of Gaborone North said spot and regular labour inspections would detect insolvent companies on time.

Officiating at the launch of Barloworld Botswana HIV/AIDS strategy in Gaborone on Saturday, Dr Khan said it was now upon individuals, groups and organisations to help sustain the economy by vigorously fighting the epidemic. Khan commended Barloworld Botswana for its strategic plan and urged others to emulate it.

She said Barloworld’s launch of an HIV/AIDS strategy was one way of heeding President Festus Mogae’s plea for Batswana to assist him to fight the scourge.

Khan also expressed hope that the company would go further and introduce other services for its staff in the quest to fight the disease, adding that programmes run without policy were difficult to expand and implement to their full capacity.

On the anti-retroviral (ARV) therapy campaign, Khan cautioned that the programme would be ineffective if people did not take it upon themselves to prevent new infections.

“It is like chasing our own tail,” she noted, adding that, “treatment is a lot more costly than prevention” and that it consumed more than 90 per cent of the funds geared towards the scourge. She therefore called on her audience to know their status and take the right step to take care of their bodies.

Introducing Tebelopele Voluntary Testing and Counselling Centre, centre official Matshidiso Ramosweu appealed to the public to take advantage of the government’s generosity and test “so that if you are HIV-positive, you can benefit from the free ARV programme”. She also advised people not to wait until they had developed full blown AIDS to test as knowing one’s HIV status could go a long way in saving theirs and other people’s lives.

The objectives of the Barloworld’s AIDS policy are to state the group’s position and practices as they relate to employees who are infected with HIV/AIDS, provide for the human rights protection and dignity of HIV infected persons and provide a foundation for the AIDS education programme.

The policy also states that pre-employment HIV testing as part of the assessment of fitness to work is unnecessary and should not be carried out as per legislation and that during the pre-employment examination the incumbent would not be required to declare their HIV status.

In its education strategy, Barloworld pledges to provide employees and their families with sufficient update information about risk reduction in their personal lives while divisions would be encouraged to nominate peer group leaders responsible for continued education process within their divisions.

The launching ceremony attracted activist groups such as Tebelopele Voluntary Testing and Counselling Centre, Harvard AIDS Institute, Total Community Mobilisation, Community Home Based Care and the Coping Centre for People Living with AIDS from places as far afield as Francistown, Orapa, Jwaneng and Ghanzi.

The warning comes in the wake of a proposed amendment to the Immigration Act to introduce stiffer penalties for unlawful entry into Botswana and for aiding and abetting such unlawful entry.

Presenting the bill, assistant labour and home affairs minister Lesego Motsumi said the object of the bill was also to empower police officers to demand admission of guilt deposit for contravening the Immigration Act.

Motsumi said the proposed amendment was intended to act as a deterrent to the increasing influx of persons who enter unlawfully into Botswana and those who aid and abet such entry or residence.

Under the proposed amendment police officers are empowered to demand an admission of guilt deposit of not less than P300 but not more than P1000. The act is also amended to provide for a minimum fine of not less than P300 but not more than P4 000 or imprisonment of a period not exceeding four years or both for illegal immigrants and their conspirators.

However, MPs argued that instead of acting as a deterrent what the bill sought to do was in fact going to open floodgates for more illegal immigrants from Zimbabwe who are running away from poverty in their country.

The MPs’ argument was that given the poor economic situation in Zimbabwe it was obvious that those people would not be able to pay the fines would be happy to be imprisoned and cared for at the expense of Batswana.

Although the MPs were constantly reminded that the proposed amendment was not solely to deal with the Zimbabwean problem, they argued that it was obvious that it was precipitated by the influx of Zimbabwean immigrants into Botswana.

Even speaker of the National Assembly Ray Molomo sided with the MPs saying that he was prepared “to put his head on the block for that.” MPs James Maruatona of Bobirwa and Tshelang Masisi of Francistown West said the proposal was not going to solve the problem of illegal immigrants but worsen overcrowding in the country’s prisons.

Nkange MP Ambrose Masalila argued that the proposal would only cause government to build more prisons after it spent P55 million to build a reception centre for illegal immigrants in Francistown. North East MP Chapson Butale was more apt in his criticism of the proposed amendment, saying that it was more like curing the symptoms than the disease.

“We are punishing the victims than the man who caused all this,” charged Butale who added that “let us take on the Zimbabwe government because that is where the problem lies.” Butale said the influx of Zimbabweans into Botswana was as a result of the political system, which portrays their country as poor and called on the Botswana government to engage its Zimbabwean counterpart through regional structures to address the problem.

Michael Mzwinila of Gaborone North described the bill as tantamount to crucifying the Zimbabweans and treating them like criminals.

Moeng Pheto of Lenstweleatau said it was not true that the government had done nothing to solve the problem of illegal immigrants from Zimbabwe as it had done so through security arrangements in the region.

Responding to the MPs’ comments assistant minister Motsumi said the bill sought to address the problem of illegal immigrants in general and not the Zimbabwean situation.

Motsumi said Botswana does not have any jurisdiction to deal with the political and economic situation in Zimbabwe but emphasised that there were other channels and structures that could be employed to address the problem.

Regarding suggestions that those people should be used as labourers, she said it was against international labour laws, as well as the Human Rights Charter to do that. However, the bill went through its second reading.

NDF was formally listed last Thursday.

The Speaker of the National Assembly, Ray Molomo, on Monday announced the presence of the new party represented by the former opposition leader, Kenneth Koma in Parliament.

Its birth from the Botswana National Front brings to three, opposition parties in Parliament.

The party has released the names of the interim leadership, which includes Peter Woto as Vice President, Lemogang Ntime the National Chairperson, Treasurer, Simon Koma and Secretary General, Phillip Monowe.

They registered their protest in a recent march to the British High Commission and US embassy offices in Gaborone.Their anti-war placards carried messages such as “Behind Every Bush There’s a Terrorist”, “War Doesn’t Prove Who’s Right only Who’s Left”, “Babies For Oil Is Not a Good Trade”.

The protesters also chanted slogans like “Burn the Bush!”In the petition handed to American and British officials, the group noted that they saw no justification in declaring war against a state that had been making every effort to comply with all United Nations (UN) resolutions.

“We are not alone in holding this view, but share it with most of the members of the UN, Arab League, Non-Aligned Movement, NEPAD, hundreds of NGO’s throughout the world and millions of concerned people.

“We share the concerns of the above mentioned that a war will bring untold misery to the millions of innocent Iraqi’s.

“It’s the first time in the history of the UN that such strong views have been expressed by members of the UN. If the US and its coalition partners go to war without UN sanctions, one wonders what is the relevance of having a world body to avert war at all cost is,” they said.

Among others, the petition demanded immediate and unconditional withdrawal of the Israeli army from all occupation of Palestinian territories in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem in accordance with UN Security resolutions 242 and 338. “Stop vetoing United Nations resolutions that call for the protection of Palestinian civilians against Israeli aggression,” they said.

The US-led invasion of Iraq has entered its fourth day today but US airforce general Daniel Leaf said the campaign to reach Baghdad would not be easy as the Iraqis were putting up some resistance. Washington and London had been pressing for war against Iraq to disarm Saddam Hussein of so-called weapons of mass destruction, a move that was opposed by most members of the UN Security Council.

Seretse, who was answering a question from Selebi-Phikwe MP Daisy Pholo, said though on the surface this seems a simple procedure, personalised registration system requires adequate and careful planning, which includes putting in place the enabling legislative framework before it can be implemented.

She said the Road Traffic Act does not have provisions to facilitate the issuance of personalised number plates. Few countries currently implement the personalised number plates sytem, they levy user fees plus annual fees ranging from P30 000 ? P50 000 and P1 000 respectively.

The prohibitive fees are set not only to recoup the costs of providing such a system and to generate revenue but also to obviate the risk and expense of running two parallel vehicle registration systems.

She added that personalised number plates may compromise security in the vehicle register and put severe strains on law enforcement capacity and prevention of vehicle-related crime. A feasibility study would have to be undertaken to determine the viability of introducing such a system.

The extent to which the system could positively influence the revenue streams in a limited traffic environment like Botswana with less than 200 000 motor vehicles, would have to be assessed.

Pholo had asked the minister if individuals can be allowed to own their vehicle registration numbers as this may benefit the government financially.

Another question from Pholo to Minister Seretse was how effective the preventive measures used against curbing driving licence forgery were? In response, Seretse said accountability for the current manual driving licences is shared between the Accountant General, Government Printer and the Department of Road Transport and Safety.

“There are inherent weaknesses in the management of the system at all levels,” she said.

“Needless to emphasise is the fact that manual systems like the current driving licence system are highly vulnerable to forgery.” Seretse said it was against the backdrop of these deficiencies that government decided to replace the current system with a computerised credit-card type driving licence system.

The issuance of a new computerised and more secure driving licence is envisaged to commence early in the 2003/2004 financial year.

Answering a third question from Pholo, Seretse said there were no delays in the conduct of theory tests in Selebi-Phikwe and its catchment areas.

However, delays occurred in conducting practical driving tests since September 2001 after the departure of the examiner, who was stationed in Selebi-Phikwe. Nevertheless, a full-time examiner is scheduled to assume duties in Selebi-Phikwe at the beginning of May this year.

Pholo had asked the minister when Selebi-Phikwe, which is the catchment area for Mmadinare and Bobirwa, would have its own driving examiner as it took between 12 to 24 months before learners could be examined or tested.

Answering a question from Francistown West MP Tshelang Masisi, Mfa said there may, however, be some supervisors who fail to be objective when assessing their subordinates but this does not mean that the tool itself is deficient.

Mfa said to ensure transparency and objectivity, the supervisor and supervisee should meet to discuss the performance and agree on the ratings. Furthermore, he said, the appraisal system allows for review by different levels of management and hence provides the checks and balances to further enhance objectivity.

Masisi had asked the minister whether he was aware that the performance management appraisal system currently being used in the civil service was subjective and did not give a true reflection of performance levels; if so, how soon would he intend to correct this anomaly as it affected productivity.

Meanwhile, assistant agriculture minister Pelokgale Seloma said a fence exists at the confluence of the Notwane and Limpopo rivers. It is, however, not possible to make it a completely impassable barrier to stop cattle and wildlife from straying into Tuli Block because of the nature of the river bed which deepens and widens with every rains.

Seloma requested MPs to join him in encouraging farmers to look after their cattle so that they do not stray.

He was answering a question from Kgatleng East MP Isaac Davids who asked him when he intended providing a barrier at the confluence of the Notwane and Limpopo Rivers to stop cattle and wildlife in Kgatleng from straying into Tuli Block.

Trade and industry minister Jacob Nkate said another measure is export trade and investment promotion through the Botswana Export Development and Investment Authority.

The third measure is access to investment from the Citizen Entrepreneurial Development Agency (CEDA) repayable within a period of five years for loans of P500 to P150 000 at an interest rate of as low as five per cent per year; and seven years for loans of between P150 000 to P2 000 000 at an interest of seven per cent a year.

Finally, the CEDA venture capital, which is designed to assist Batswana investors and business ventures jointly owned by citizen and foreign investors with loans and equity capital at market interest rate. Nkate said, however, that despite this, there seems to be lack of enthusiasm on the part of the business sector to take advantage of the vast market access opportunities that the Cotonou Agreement offers.

He said he intends to address the challenge by continuing dialogue with the business community to identify their constraints in making use of opportunities arising from the Cotonou and other trade preferential arrangements and provide support, where possible. He said it should be noted, however, that the role of government is to facilitate and it is up to the business operators to come forward and take advantage of the opportunities created for them.

Nkate was answering a question from Lentsweletau MP Moeng Pheto who asked him what measures are currently in place in Botswana to make use of the Cotonou Agreement trade preferences that will cease to operate by the end of December 2007.

Kajuu said that was why council adopted a motion on the relocation of Basarwa to make it easier for it to provide services to them in one place.

Briefing Kgatleng district councillors after their tour of Old and New Xade, D’kar and West Hanahai settlements last week, Kajuu said on average his council was spending over P54 000 monthly to distribute destitute rations, mobile clinic and other services from other government departments.

He said after consultations, Basarwa identified New Xade as the ideal settlement for them. Kajuu told councillors that no arm-twisting tactics were used in the exercise and that all those who were willing to relocate were assisted to do so.

He added that settlers were compensated for their CKGR property upon arrival at New Xade where they were, in addition, allocated demarcated plots and given cattle.

Those who did not want to relocate were allowed to stay since the exercise was to be conducted strictly on the basis of consultations and not the use of force, he stressed. Kajuu said at the time, only 64 people remained in the CKGR, some of them on the grounds that either the father or mother was ill but promised to relocat to New Xade once they had recovered.

For their part, some councillors asked why council cut water supplies for those who chose to stay behind and demanded to know if it were true that the people were moved to pave way for diamond mining operations at Gope.

Kajuu told councillors that his council “does not have any powers to operate a mine”.

He explained that financially, it was difficult for council to provide services to people who were “scattered in the CKGR and preferred to have them in one place”.

He said if there were any plans to operate a mine within the CKGR, the same pattern used in opening Jwaneng, Orapa and Letlhakane and Selebi-Phikwe mines was going to be followed.

Kajuu said when the mines started operating people in those areas were asked to move to give way to the establishment of these national assets.

For his part, Kgatleng District Council deputy chairperson Japheth Madisa thanked the Ghanzi District Council officials for the hospitality and cooperation during his team’s four-day visit to Ghanzi.

Madisa said the trip, which ended last week, was important for them as politicians because they wanted to get first hand information on the Basarwa issue over which government was being attacked by British non-governmental organisation Survival International (SI).

He said after the tour they were now in a better position to defend government against SI and other organisations conducting a smear campaign against Botswana.

Madisa said the trip was also traumatic for them in that their bus twice got bogged down in the sandy roads on their way from New Xade.

The vehicle had to be towed after six hours in the wilderness during which time councillors remained “hole up” in the bus for fear of marauding “wild cats,” he said.

This year’s theme was “Water for the Future.” He said the day is commemorated globally every year with a view to create and promote awareness amongst the public on appropriate measures on water conservation.

Motlhatlhedi said proper ways to conserve, protect and manage water have to be applied to achieve the intended objectives of saving water.

He called on people in the water industry to come together to share ideas on how best water can be conserved as well as bringing in new technologies.

He also advised them to teach water users amicable means to preserve water and to equip them with appropriate information.

He said water conservation is a necessity in Botswana because of its scarcity and therefore a more consolidated effort has to be put in place to manage the limited resource.

He said Botswana needs water for economic development, livestock and for balancing and maintaining of the ecology.

He explained that proper handling of water has to be taken into consideration to avoid incurring high water bills.

Kaelo came first in the senior men’s category and won himself N$2 000 and a floating trophy while Onneile came first in the junior women’s category and won herself N$1 000.

The two athletes are in the Botswana National Sports Council (BNSC)-funded out-of-school project.

The team flew to Namibia on saturday and returned home the next day.

They are currently in camp with the All-Africa Games preliminary team.

The All-Africa Games will be held in the Nigerian capital of Abuja in October this year.

“The price of water has also escalated dramatically over the past few years, so if the lack of water does not stifle Botswana’s growth, then just as surely, the price of water will,” Kgoroba said on Saturday, at the end of the national water week.

“It is a sombre scenario that brings us all together today to celebrate water along with the rest of the developed world and we unite with all other water challenged nations, wherever they may be.” Kgoroba said to waste water in a country that suffers from thirst, like Botswana, is a social disgrace.

Not only the washing of motor vehicles with a running hose pipe or washing down the driveways and paved areas but also by using large inefficient toilet cisterns, showerheads, and, worst of all - the ultimate water wasters, - the automatic flushing urinals that are installed all over Botswana. “We aim to have all of these ultimate water wasters declared illegal in the future,” he said.

He explained only by applying these principles, the nation will succeed in deferring the need for future extra-ordinary expensive water supply schemes, thus contributing to the conservation of water resources and thereby keeping water affordable for all Batswana.

He also explained that the emphasis on water conservation is necessitated by the fact that water is a scarce commodity in Botswana. Botswana, and the surrounding regions, is experiencing one of the hottest and driest summers of record.

Rainfall has been dismal and extremely sparse and this has focused the attention of the nation on water and the need to conserve it.

Kgoroba spoke of the need to expose children to water conservation issues and learn to appreciate water.

Archive by year