BE FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY

There has been 1, 8 million births recorded by the ministry of Nationality, Immigration and Gender Affairs since 1968. Commmenting on the budget proposal for the ministry last week Member of Parliament for Ramotswa, Samuel Rantuana disagreed with the available statistics. “Does the minister imply that population growth is that very low? I don’t believe the numbers are accurate we can’t have just 1.79 million children born in the past 51 years. This means we are growing slowly,” he refuted. If so, he said citizens must be encouraged to have more children. The statistics show that 64 350 births were registered during the period April 2018 to February 2019 out of which 31 541 were females and 32 809 males. As at February 2019, people under the age of 16 years stood at over 820 000 as per the National births register. Rantuana also suggested that single parents should be given an allowance to raise children. “Many women are out there struggling to raise children that are deserted by their fathers, so government should consider to help (sic) these women,” said Rantuana. Minister of Nationality Immigration and Gender Affairs, Ngaka Ngaka said the national identity register (Omang) shows a total of over 1.6 million people above the age of 16 years were registered as at February 2019. Out of that number 837, 400 are females and 795, 900 are males. On the other hand, the National death register stands at over 359 000 since inception in 1968. Since April 2018 to date a total of 15 662 deaths were recorded out of which more than 7 600 are females and more than 8000 are males. “Registration of death remains a challenge, particularly in the remote and hard to reach areas. My ministry continues to intensify public education on the importance of death registration,” said Ngaka. Ngaka said the idea to give single parents allowance is a good suggestion but it might encourage men to continue deserting children knowing that government will raise those children. “We have already embarked on a programme to empower the boy child so that they grow to become responsible men. If we can go back and say government will take care of their children we will continue with the same problem,” said Ngaka.