25 Jun 2014

The procurement of textbooks has been transferred from the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development to the Ministry of Education & Skills Development with effect from April this year.

During his speech at the on-going Gaborone City Council (GCC) full council meeting, the mayor, Mr Haskins Nkaigwa said the only functions remaining with the Ministry of Local Government & Rural Development included transportation of students, feeding, infrastructure as well as procurement of stationery, school equipment and furniture.

Mr Nkaigwa also informed councillors that Gaborone had formed a district committee on education, saying the committee started working from April and their duties included ensuring that all primary, junior and senior secondary schools had adequate resources to facilitate delivery of education. 

The committee also had to assess and clarify need for both minor and major maintenance and take immediate action to remedy such situations. 

Mr Nkaigwa explained that its (committee) other mandate was to ensure that sanitation and related environmental hazards are removed from schools as a matter of urgency as well as ensuring that school heads were guided to respond to the requirements of effective management of schools. 

The committee met on a weekly basis and reported to the Office of the President. Regarding feeding, Mr Nkaigwa said all the primary schools had been supplied with peanut butter and fruit jam and that currently, all the 29 primary schools in Gaborone were receiving sliced bread and no challenges had been reported. 

Regarding agricultural products, the mayor said a total of P372 065.44 was allocated to 21 primary schools for utilisation this season and only P264 849.75 had been spent, hence a balance of P128 815.69 still remained. 

He said the main challenge was the large balance on agricultural products even though the fresh agricultural products season is about to come to an end. 

To put the situation into perspective, the council will conduct refresher workshops for schools’ agricultural products procuring committees so as to encourage them to fast track the process of procuring such products. 

He said Gaborone City Council intends to disburse agricultural products funds for the 2015 season as early as December 2014 so that preparation for the procurement of the products can commence well in time. ENDS