18 Apr 2013

The Jwaneng Town Council deputy town clerk-finance, Mr Leano Mokete has said that despite concerted efforts to collect revenue, the council is still owed millions of Pula.

Briefing the assistant minister of Local Government and Rural Development at a managers meeting in Jwaneng recently, he said that currently, over P3 million worth of rates were still indebted to the council, while the building materials loan and service levy debts stood at over P650 000 and P279 000 respectively.

He said despite using different strategies such as sending reminder letters, house to house campaigns as well as newspaper adverts, the payments still failed to come forth.

He said that the council was even considering litigation to collect debts.

One of the challenges, Mr Mokete noted, was that some houses had been leased to tenants and owners were not available in town.

This, he said, made it difficult for them to communicate directly with owners.

On poverty eradication, the deputy town clerk noted that a total of 12 projects had been funded to benefit 16 people.

Out of these, three projects for catering, hairdressing and food processing were currently operational while the rest were at different stages of procurement of material.

He said since 2009, a total of 15 projects were funded by the Youth Development Fund (YDF), 11 of which were operational while three had collapsed. These projects, he said, have been able to create 33 jobs.

He noted that a youth forum was held in Jwaneng recently to find out challenges faced by young people and their businesses. Acute shortage of operational space for businesses cropped up at the top of the list.

Mr Mokete further said that the council had been able to pay 776 old age pensioners while 112 were unpaid. 253 destitute persons were assisted and 76 were not. He said the main hindrance for not assisting such beneficiaries was ill health or relocation of the said beneficiaries.

He also explained that of the over P6 million allocated for Ipelegeng projects for the years 2012/2013, the expenditure to date was at over P3 millon and they had a cumulative employment of 3 028.

He however noted that Jwaneng township alone did not meet the quota for Ipelegeng, hence some people came from villages in the periphery such as Sese. ENDS