Raphaka speaks on MLH service delivery
Patricia Edwin | Tuesday September 16, 2014 15:54
He said that it was clear MLH was not doing well in human resources, finance, anti-corruption and public relations areas.
Raphaka was speaking at the start of the three-day MLH fifth leadership forum that started in Francistown yesterday.
He said that they must be concerned about supervision issues in its totality, “not distinguishing it from measures and targets we have set for ourselves.
“These issues remain a pain for this ministry. Now and then we are cautioned about it, but what is it that we are doing or have been doing to deal with this?” he asked.
In his welcome remarks, Raphaka said that he hoped that all the resolutions from the past three leadership fora have been implemented.
“If not ,we should know that Batswana out there will continue complaining about our service delivery,” he said.
He further urged the employees to be imaginative and creative and come up with new strategic issues that can promote delivery of their mandate.
Raphaka also touched on issues of concern by the government regarding the ministry.
“These include poor service delivery and our inability to create value on land,” he said.
He added that it is also in view of that, that the leaders have instructed Land Boards to find or plan and set aside land to utilise by youth syndicates in their respective areas,” he said.
Raphaka went on to say that they are also reminded (by government) of their contribution to improvement of quality of life for prosperity.
“The question each one of us must ask is, ‘what are we doing to improve/move the lives of Batswana towards prosperity; what kind of cascading mechanism are we employing to achieve this?” he said, adding that these questions must be answered instantly.
Raphaka said that it was important for them to remember that Botswana is an export-orientated economy with a strong focus on commodities including minerals and land.
“I am mentioning land for the simple reasons that it forms part of the three factors of production.
“Therefore, it is paramount to plan, allocate and manage land in a sustainable manner to avoid the painful harvest for the seed we have sown,” he said.
Raphaka also voiced concern on the operations of the Land Boards that were lagging behind.
He said that recently a team from the ministry visited offices in the north and were met by surprise.
“To their surprise they found misery mostly at some of our subordinate Land Boards, in particular Tutume and Tonota.
“This could actually be a picture across all our sub Land Boards. Basically, the Land Board has not institutionalised performance management issues,” he said.
Raphaka said that this is despite their continued guidance as to how issues must be managed at lower levels.