20 Aug 2014

Botswana Congress Party (BCP) chairperson, Ms Motsei Rapelana has called on Kanye South constituents to vote for Mr Pako Madigele to enable him to represent their wishes and aspirations in Parliament.

Ms Rapelana said during the launch of Mr Madigele on August 17 in Kanye that the 26-year-old Mr Madigele, a unionist and nurse by profession, was conversant with youth and workers’ issues; therefore young people and workers should vote him in large numbers.

Ms Rapelana indicated that Mr Madigele’s leadership, advocacy and courage came to the fore during the 2011 public service strike when he stood up to be counted.

On other issues, Ms Rapelana said the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) led government had exported jobs to other countries at the expense of jobless Batswana.

She said the fact that the Diamond Trading Company(DTC) only polished 20 per cent of the total rough diamonds produced locally while the rest were still being processed abroad meant that over 12 000 jobs had been exported to other countries.

Although endowed with raw salt, which is predominantly mined from Sowa town, Ms Rapelana complained that government had failed to come up with industries to process it into a consumable commodity. She said raw salt was still being refined in South Africa; thus creating jobs for South African citizens instead of Batswana.

Furthermore, she said if her party was voted into power, cattle skins, hides and horns from the Botswana Meat Commission (BMC) would be processed into consumable goods locally, hence jobs would be created for Btswana.

She complained that skins were being processed in countries like Italy, only to come back as finished goods but exorbitantly priced for the local market.

She said if her party was to be given a chance to govern, capable Batswana would be trained to work in refinery industries, such as it is happening in countries like Ghana.

Ms Rapelana said her party would create permanent jobs for Batswana as opposed to stop gap measures like the Ipelegeng project and Tirelo Sechaba, which would not carry Batswana far enough.

Another speaker and Parliamentary candidate for the Kanye North constituency, Mr Kentse Rammidi, said the BDP was no longer relevant to Botswana politics. 

He said the party had lost internal democracy and direction, as such he warned that by voting for such a party, Batswana would be subjecting themselves to perpetual intolerance, poverty and unemployment.

Mr Rammidi also accused BDP of using recession as an excuse for a slump in infrastructure development noting that P7 Billion which was earmarked for developments between 2009 and 2014 was returned to government coffers unused. He argued that the problem was not shortage of funds, but funds not well spent.

He said the Kanye stadium had been shelved because the funds which were earmarked for it were used to build one in Masunga. He urged Kanye residents to vote for Mr Madigele and his party, whom he described as a fearless unionist, to advance their cause.

For his part, Mr Madigele called on voters to use the ballot to throw the BDP out of power because it had overstayed its welcome. ENDS