The Minister of Local Government and Rural Development (MLGRD), Kgotla Autlwetse has told Parliament that the Ipelegeng Skills Development Component (ISDC), since its transformation from Ipelegeng, has not been fully utilised as its projects have fallen back on time.
The move to transform Ipelegeng to ISDC was necessitated by the government’s desire to fully utilise it and equip ordinary Motswana with skills. Responding to a question in Parliament on Wednesday, Autlwetse revealed that since the transformation back in 2022, the programme has fallen short where in most cases some projects from ISDC are left behind. “The concept started in the South East District as part of transforming the Ipelegeng Programme. The concept was then rolled out to other districts in April 2022. The turnaround time for most of the projects exceeds the planned by two to three months,” he said.
Autlwetse added that government thought introducing the transformed programme in batches would lessen the challenges but that has not been the case thus far. “We will all agree that the model is relatively new as we are implementing the first batch of projects and therefore, are experiencing challenges,” Autlwetse said.
Explaining why ISDC has not been fully utilised like it should be, the minister highlighted that it boils down to the trainees who grasp knowledge at different times. “The training aspect is competency-based and individually modularised, therefore, the speed at which the trainees grasp the concepts is taken into consideration to avert compromising quality,” he highlighted. Citing some projects that have also fallen back on time, Autlwetse cited the LA 2 house in Sexaxa, Maun East. “This is one peculiar project that has had numerous challenges at its initial stages. The project delays were mainly due to planning and logistics and the project stalled for some time,” he said.
He further recognised that these delays have had cost overruns on the envisioned budget for the projects, but emphasised that they did not have a negative impact. “Some of the projects implemented through this model have had cost overruns. However the continuous improvements we make on planning and logistics as well as the stakeholders are giving good results,” Autlwetse said.
The minister was responding to a question by the Member of Parliament (MP) for Maun East, Goretetse Kekgonegile who was asking among others the turnaround period on projects and if it made economic sense to continue with the model on public projects.
