Gov�t official unearths fraud amongst Mabutsane farmers
Chakalisa Dube | Tuesday November 21, 2017 17:06
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the employee told Mmegi that there were many instances where the beneficiary and the supplier went to the customary court to register the goats as per the requirement, but the exchange does not take place.
Instead of the LIMID beneficiary getting the stock, the supplier retains them and the two share the payments from government.
“The fraudulent act has been going on for many years. The government has been looking for goats to supply new beneficiaries yet in the past there were other government funded programmes such FAP, Youth Development Fund (YDF) and now LIMID which started in the year 2010,” the source explained.
He added that for all these programmes, “goats related are at the centre stage and investigations show that there has been no increase in goats population in the area.
In Mabutsane sub-District it is even worse because they borrow goats from their neighbours when they know that government officials are coming to check progress of the programme”.
For Mabutsane sub-District, which has 18 small villages, including settlements, which are under Rural Area Development Programme (RADP), LIMID has not performed as expected.
The officer said LIMID was an ideal programme for the district because of terrain and limited markets for other service programmes due to limited population per village.
According to the officer, recently there was a directive from the ministry that instructed the officers to distribute livestock food supplements to the beneficiaries despite the absence of goats. Though a feedback report was sent to the ministry to describe the situation on the ground, the officers went all out to distribute the supplements.
The corrupt beneficiaries, with no goats to feed, allegedly sold the supplements to the established goat farmers, some of whom came from outside the Mabutsane to grab the stock at a cheaper price.
On the realisation of what was going on, the local office received correspondence advising the officers to stop the distribution of supplements.
The former Member of Parliament for Jwaneng/Mabutsane who is now specially elected, Mephato Reatile admitted during the Southern District Poverty Eradication expo in Mabutsane on Thursday that government programmes had challenges.
He said they were aware of hiccups and fraud in the LIMID programme. He said government intended to increase extension staff and also start buying goats in bulkto distribute them to beneficiaries. Reatile highlighted that out of the 8,371 eligible applicants for different packages under poverty eradication programme, 3,359 were funded. However, only 259 businesses were doing well and 187 have collapsed.
Poverty statistics from the district shows that there were currently 501 orphans, 14 community home-based care clients, 1,020 destitute persons, 1,073 needy students and 43 needy children.