Dodging Matome angers PAC
Nnasaretha Kgamanyane | Wednesday May 27, 2015 18:00
The PAC was particularly disturbed by Matome’s attitudeof dodging questions.
First to fire was Tati East MP Samson Guma Moyo who accused Matome of failing to field what he said were questions about issues in the public domain.
He said the committee was disappointed that despite the fact that the ministry was faced with many challenges, the PS had failed to articulate them.
Such issues, included complaints from stakeholders such as the Ministry of Wildlife and Tourism, whose gripe with MLHA was that it was reluctant to give tourists visas and was in the process endangering the tourism sector.
He also complained that MLHA was making it very difficult for other visitors, including minors, to enter Botswana.
“We have also learnt that you are vetting out children under two years from entering the country but allow their parents in the country.
How can you allow parents to visit the country without their children? In other incidents, we have heard that you sometimes kick out the husband and leave his wife and children in the country, which is not good for the country. Do you understand the negative perception you are giving to this country?” he asked.
Moyo further pointed out that countries were starting to pull out their investments from the country as they felt that Botswana did not want to cooperate with them.
Furthermore he asked Matome to state her ministry’s quota for citizenship status allocation per year. He added that allocating 200 people citizenship per year out of thousands of applications was unreasonable, especially given the fact that foreigners married many local women.
He asked the ministry to state the standard it was using to come up with 200 openings for citizenship. Moreover Moyo expressed doubt about the transparency of the whole process.
For his part, MP for Selebi Phikwe West Dithapelo Keorapetse said the Botswana International Trade Centre had lodged a formal complaint against MLHA after the ministry’s refusal to issue work permits to potential investors cost it P4 billion.
Keorapetse said he was perplexed by Matome’s denial of issues.
“HATAB also raised the issue that they were not happy with the way applications were rejected. You have brought forth evidence of visas you rejected in the tourists sector to parliament earlier.
Why do you want them to present evidence when you have it? How are you engaging tourism and other stakeholders in residence and work permits,” he asked.
In her defense, Matome said she was not sure if there was a policy guiding MLHA in the allocation of citizenships per year. She added that she believed it was a practice, and a good one by the ministry.
“We don’t have the information regarding tourism. There are certain countries that require visas to Botswana while there are some that do not need visas.
We have approved more than 15,000 visas and rejected about 7,100 visas. Nationalities approved were Zimbabwe, India, Zambia and China which also had rejected applications,” she explained.
Matome further told the PAC that she did not have meetings with the stakeholders whom PAC said had lodged complaints.
However she agreed that her ministry was aware of HATAB complaints but had asked them to bring forth evidence supporting their complaints.
While she contradicted the PAC’s assertion that she was ignorant about issues in her ministry, Matome was often found at a loss when the PAC posed questions to her. Her answer to most questions that she could not answer was either that she was not aware of the issue or that she had not discussed the issue being brought before her. This, left the PAC greatly exasperated.