Lack of funds scuppers BCP political school
Chakalisa Dube | Tuesday April 14, 2015 15:44
The party, however, has dismissed suggestions that it has abandoned the initiative.
The BCP secretary for political education Florence Shagwa told Mmegi yesterday that the focus has been on other party activities. “Of course the political school has not been running at the pace we wanted since its launch but it has not been totally stopped.
“Other priorities such as the preparation for the last year’s general elections has meant that we had to temporarily shift our focus from the political school,” Shagwa said.
Shagwa said to organise classes for members it requires funds for logistics such as transport, accommodation and food for facilitators and participants.
“This is costly and with little resources we had to give priority to other competing party activities which needed our immediate attention. If we had funds we could have given the political school immediate priority,” she said.
“So far since the launch we have managed to train trainers who will facilitate the classes. We did trainings sometime ago at the launch in Mmokolodi as well as in Francistown, Maun and Gaborone,” Shagwa added.
She said the school would resume after the party elective congress in July.
“However, we may run classes not on a very high pace as we wished because of lack of funds and other resources,” she stated.
The BCP president Dumelang Saleshando first announced the plan to launch a political school at the party annual congress in July 2009. The programme was subsequently launched mid 2012, but never reached the anticipated heights.
In fact the party has been silent on the school for some time, prompting speculation that might have been abandoned.
The delay of the launch was however attributed to the development of the school curriculum. The purpose of the school is to educate party members about the history and the ideology of the BCP. Part of the school curriculum is also designed to teach members about conflict resolution, how to deal with the media and leadership skills amongst others.