Furniture: Young parliamentary contender
Correspondent | Wednesday December 20, 2023 07:29
He has been BCP YL president for a single term from 2019 to July 2022, interestingly quite aware of what he is getting himself into. And readily admits that his is of course an uphill battle, but not an insurmountable one.
In an interview, the young politician exuded confidence that the battles he has fought within the BCP to ultimately win the youth league presidency have taught him a lot of lessons.
And according to views, "there is no smooth sailing in politics. All victories are secured from relentless hardwork". The hardwork that he has already begun to invest in the Tati East constituency.
To scale the heights to the youth league presidency, Furniture explains that it was not an easy feat as he had previously lost the battle for the league's chairmanship.
He explains that he is aware that he is entering a constituency that is currently considered a BDP stronghold. Since creation in 2004, the constituency has in all subsequent elections been won by the BDP under Samson Guma, and currently under Dr Douglas Letsholathebe.
"I am aware that mine is a mountain climb, which needs resilience and strong focus. I started my campaign very early in the constituency and the message is so far well received. It is quite encouraging and we are driven to keep on going tirelessly until election day", says the young contender confidently.
He argues that it is very unfortunate that Tati East has never had any strong representation in parliament, hence "it is lagging behind so much in development terms compared to other constituencies".
To dethrone the BDP, Furniture promises to bring quality representation, one that is alive to all the challenges that the constituency faces, and he is in a flash of a second able to narrate them all out. He actually sings about the challenges like it is from some hymn book.
As a solution for the land shortage crisis, Furniture proposes that government starts a serious conversation with these private landholders, geared towards a systematic acquisition of the land for the benefit of the general public of the NED.
"The serious conversation with the private landholders will help government to understand the cost implications and budget appropriately for the land, and develop an acquisition programme tied to the budget estimates", said Furniture adding that "Tati Company must be urgently engaged and convinced to release substantial pockets of land to government".
As for delayed delivery of land allocation services, Furniture blames it on the government's failure to service the acquired land expeditiously tgrough provision of among others roads, water and electricity connection.
While he advocates for a systematic land acquisition programme, Furniture warns that it must be doneThe other issue that worries Furniture is government's failure to declare Zone 6B an Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) red zone.
According to the young politician, once declared an FMD red zone, there will not be any need to cull the cattle if there is a disease outbreak because the zone will adapt to living with it.
"FMD that breaks out almost every ten years has impoverished Tati East constituency residents up from Matsiloje/Matopi down to Jackalas No.1 and Ramogwebana villages. All the time there is an outbreak, government kills all the cattle with an imminent restocking exercise. This is an expensive government undertaking while the people are being impoverished", laments Furniture adding that he fails to understand why the government option has always been to kill and the cattle and then restock without considering other options.
The young politician argues that what he is proposing, that is, the declaration of Zone 6B into an FMD red zone is nothing impossible to do because there are already regions that have been declared red zones like the Ngami, Bobirwa as well as Okavango areas.
"This is not an unreasonable request to allow North East District people to adjust to living with the disease", says Furniture wondering why the Botswana Vaccine Institute has not yet produced an FMD vaccine that will save cattle from the horrific mass slaughter once there is an outbreak.
The other issue of concern to Furniture is the acute shortage to low supply of potable water in the constituency as some villages are seriously faced with the problem.
He is also worried that apart from the acute shortage, people are still given very high bills not commensurate with the water supply.
Furniture argues that in the yesteryear when the council was responsible for the provision of water to the people, the charges were very reasonable compared to what the Water Utilities Corporation charges people today where a monthly bill can go up as high as P3000 per month.
As for service delivery, Furniture decries that the provision is way below par. "Service delivery in the Tati East constituency is terribly poor to the extent that some in the constituency travel far too long distances to access services", bemoans Furniture.
According to Furniture, there is an acute shortage of doctors, nurses at most clinics and health posts which means that patients are not attended to as expected.
He also decries that most government departments face an acute shortage of staff while graduates continue to roam the streets citing the example of the education sector that continues to employ teachers on temporary basis while vacancies are not being permanently filled.
Furniture also argues that there is a service centre at Tati Siding village that government continues to stubbornly neglect from converting into a fully fledged sub-district to cater for the Tati East constituency since Masunga serves the Tati West constituency well.
"This service centre needs upgrading to the sub-district level to help reduce the long distance from areas like Shashe Bridge and others to Masunga", said Furniture. with utmost care unless Botswana moves the Zimbabwe route and ultimately chase away potential investors.
As for the education sector, Furniture bemoans that the infrastructure in terms of buildings and other amenities at primary, junior and senior schools are dilapidated beyond repair because of lack of maintenance.
He says government does not seem to have a maintenance plan in place for the schools while at some schools like Thamani Junior Secondary School students continue to use pit latrines instead of the modern flushing toilets. He added that the pit latrines are in bad state, thereby posing a serious health hazard to the users.
He says that the state at Thamani is particularly disheartening because the school is in the constituency of Dr Douglas Letsholathebe who is also a minister of education and it looks like he is turning a blind eye to the problem.
Furniture adds that some schools in the constituency do not even have proper offices for their executive staff citing Tshesebe and Shashe Bridge primary schools as living examples.
He further decries shortage of classrooms in almost all the primary schools in the constituency. The shortage comes at a time when government has introduced pre-primary education yet it has not constructed more classrooms to cater for that level given the importance of pre-school education.
The young politician is also worried by the high student/teacher ratio of about 30 to 1 which he considers to be still too high.
"The biggest problem is that government has trained so many teachers but does not have the political will to employ them permanently. It is frustrating to be continually employed on short term contracts while your peers elsewhere have been offered permanent employment", says Furniture adding that there is a serious shortage of teachers in all government schools.
He also bemoans that in this age and era, there are some students who walk long distances to and fro school.
About 14 kilometers per day and "this can't by any stretch of imagination be said to be a conducive learning environment", said Furniture.
To this, he proposes that it is high time that government provides transport for those students, even if it can be outsourced transport.
The other burning is high crime rates in all the villages in the constituency which has only two police stations despite its vastness. Other villages have police posts that are literally without resources, and therefore unable to provide the requisite services.
As for economic development, Furniture decries that the NED is generally lagging behind in development, "and therefore unable to create any meaningful employment hence too high numbers of Ipelegeng workers compared with other districts".
"The youth is unemployed. They are in Ipelegeng whose wages can't uplift them from poverty. There is need to mobilize investment into the district. The district was affected by the closure of some mines", said Furniture. But he is worried that the future looks bleak for the coming generations if drastic employment creation measures are not undertaken.
"They must know that this is a full time political war that is set to be fought. We are grounded and ready to do battle", said Furniture.