Chillyboy Rakgare – [Ministry of Youth, Sport & Culture]
Botswana presents a youthful population with more than two-thirds (70 per cent) of the total population under 35yrs of age. About 33.5 percent of the population is aged 10 -24 years. The UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund (UNPF) says a youthful population is the beam of hope in realising a country’s demographic dividend. The question is, with a 5.9 percent expenditure on its 2022/23 development budget, can the ministry of youth led by Rakgare help Botswana to harness the Demographic Dividend?
Maria Mokgethi – [Ministry of Gender & Home Affairs]
The Ministry provides essential services of civil registration and vital statistics, movement of persons across borders and gender equality which are important for the social and economic development of the country. But guess what? Their expenditure only went up to 19.02 percent during the current financial year. The ministry has however been split following a rationalisation exercise announced by President Mokgweetsi Masisi in April 2022 who then shifted Mokgethi to ministry of Employment.
Kabo Morwaeng – [Parliament]
At 6.5 percent expenditure in 2022/23, the Botswana Parliament falls under the Presidency ministry which is led by Minister Kabo Morwaeng. The Morwaeng led Parliament has been one of the government agencies that ‘care-less’ about spending its development budget. During the 2022/23 financial year, in terms of project implementation, of the four (4) projects that were allocated funds, only two (2) being the refurbishment of Parliament Buildings and the Rollout of Botswana Speaks commenced. The remaining two, being the Parliament Security and the upgrading of Network in Constituency offices are reported to still be at the planning stage.
“The delay in implementation of these projects is related to the engagement of various stakeholders (Botswana Television, Security Agencies, SmartBots, and Museum) and inadequate staffing of critical offices like the Facilities Management Unit”, Morwaeng told Parliament this past week. Despite the failure in 2022/23, Morwaeng has once again budgeted P945, 000 for the Parliament Security project during the coming financial year.
Machana Ronald Shamukuni – [Ministry of Employment Labour Productivity & Skills Development]
Before April 2022 Botswana had a ministry dubbed Employment Labour Productivity & Skills Development and headed by Machana Ronald Shamukuni. A fiscal report by Peggy Serame for the period that ended January 2023 shows that it was only able to spend 7.53 percent of its allocated share of the development budget. The ministry is now under Maria Mokgethi who has since requested P75 million as development budget for the financial year 2023/24.
Kagiso Mmusi – [Ministry of Justice]
The department of Administration of Justice has been identified as the main culprit when it comes to understanding. Before the rationalisation, it fall under the then then Ministry of Defence, Justice and Security which was led by Kagiso Mmusi (Now at Defence Ministry). At the last account, the department had spent only 13.6 percent of the money that was allocated to it under the developmental budget for the 2022/23 financial year. The new Justice Minister, Shamukuni is due before Parliament to request funds for the 2023/24 financial year this coming week.
