Student Number : 0400522J -
MSc research report -
School of Civil and Environmental Engineering -
Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment / The Government of Botswana has, since 1972, implemented several programmes of
labour intensive work as a complementary effort to alleviate high levels of
unemployment, poverty and rural under-development. This research project describes
and evaluates six of the programmes: the Botswana Labour Intensive District Roads
Programme (LG 34), the Rural Roads Programme (RRP), the Labour Intensive Public
Works Schemes (LG 38), the Labour Intensive Drought Relief Programme (LG 117),
the current National Public Works Programme (LG 1107) and the current Labour
Intensive Routine Road Maintenance Programme. The programmes have been
described and evaluated in relation to their internal objectives as well as against
international literature on labour intensive work in order to determine whether or not
they were successful. The study reveals that the LG 34 was a highly successful
programme as it achieved most of its key objectives and was in conformity with
international literature. The programme created jobs for a significant number of poor
Batswana through the construction of good quality low cost roads. It developed and
established road construction and maintenance units within the District Councils. The
success of the LG 34 was, however, later undermined by a depreciated wage rate
contributing to the eventual demise of the programme.
The Labour Intensive Road Maintenance Programme, although currently in its early
stages of expansion, has been impressive. It has successfully developed and
demonstrated through a Pilot Project a model for the use of labour based small
contractors, managed by a private sector consultant, for routine road maintenance.
This had not been done before in Botswana.
The rest of the programmes were plagued by inefficiencies resulting from poor initial
planning, lack of training and technical supervisory personnel, lack of proper
organisational systems for the programmes and incorporation into drought relief activities. Most of these programmes were wound up, and the on-going National
Public Works Programme is struggling to survive.
In sum, the Botswana experience has shown that labour intensive methods could be
successful if attention were paid to initial design and planning, training of technical
supervisory staff and the establishment of proper organisational systems. In addition,
to differentiate proper labour intensive work from drought relief, wages must be paid
at or close to the Industrial Class minimum wage.
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| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/2039 |
| Date | 16 February 2007 |
| Creators | Muatjetjeja, Mex Mujazemee |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 1633557 bytes, application/pdf, application/pdf |
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