Clarity needed on Constituency Development Fund
Mmegi Editor | Thursday March 16, 2017 11:24
After splashing out millions of pula in projects such as the constituency football league, dikhwaere and others, which were never accounted for, the government introduced the Economic Stimulus Package otherwise known as ESP.
The objective of the project, we were told, was to fast track some projects that have long been delayed for various reasons. ESP was also meant to facilitate maintenance in schools and at other Government buildings that have reached their old age.
Recently we were hit with another surprise when we were told that constituencies will each receive P10 million for minor projects.
From the grapevine, we hear that the millions will be coordinated by council officials and Village Development Committees. Already, some of these councils are struggling to coordinate their own finances and fail to implement projects while some return funds to the central government at end of every financial year.
Other councils are also challenged with issues of corruption and are unable to account for finances they have been allocated in the previous financial years.
VDCs on the other hand are facing similar problems of corruption, lack of skilled manpower in project implementation, and in extreme scenarios, many of them grapple with the uncontrollable practice of nepotism.
In some cases of such nepotism, the family members occupy positions of chairman, treasurer, secretary and account only to one another.
In some instances, certain VDCs have never held election in five or more years and do not account to their constituents. In total, the money Government intends to spend on individual constituencies, is P570 million.
This amount is enough to build a state-of-the-arts hospital or senior secondary school in Kweneng West, Kgalagadi, Okavango, Ngamiland or Tswapong, or areas which are often ignored for their need for development. These regions have been denied for too long a time.
People in such areas still travel long distances to access Government services where they also spend hours in queues before they can see a doctor, a specialist or book a service. Yes, patients still wait for months before they can meet a specialist for an ailment that torments them.
Further, it would have been better if finances were spent to train specialists that are in short supply in our hospitals to save more lives, as our nation is in urgent need of world class health practitioners and specialists.
Citizens have died in queues waiting to see a doctor and others suffer from strange ailments that are too expensive to cure abroad. We spend millions of pula on South African referral hospitals annually, when we should be domesticating most of those services. We need to set our priorities straight, and health - if not at the top of the list of importance - is one of them.
Today’s thought
“The Principle of Priority states (a) you must know the difference between what is urgent and what is important, and (b) you must do what’s important first.”
- Steven Pressfield