Donations and development

We are always seeing, reading or hearing of MPs donating motor vehicles to communities, associations, and villages in their parts of the country.
That is part of their mandated obligations given through the power of the people when they were elected into the national Parliament.
Donations of vehicles are some ways of helping people ease their daily struggles to transport agricultural produce and cash crops, such as coffe, to markets, or taking goods back home.
The donation often makes people happy, making them believe that such gifts will change their life forever.
I, personally, don’t think that MPs’ donations of motor vehicles to people, while it is part of their duties as responsible leaders, is correct in the context of development.
So what is true development? How can we define the word development in the context of donations?
The true interpretation of development is any physical structure – whether it be renovation, construction, building, erecting, planting or any other change – that occur from the original position of land, infrastructure, building or other structures from one stage to another.
Donations of vehicles cannot be defined as development, therefore people should not be misled by this. People need to change that
mentality of claiming such donations as development because they will be fooling themselves.
So rather than buying vehicles for groups of people, village, communities or associations, MPs should inject more funds into community-based projects such as rural water supplies, rural electricity schemes, vocational
training centres and aid posts which can benefit the communities. Funds should be put to where long-term goals can be achieved in accordance with government development plans, rather than promoting hidden motives.

Hometa Aepavi Kuimane