24 May 2016

The mayor of Francistown, Ms Sylvia Muzila, has implored councillors to strive to achieve their objectives.

Addressing a full council meeting on Monday, Ms Muzila said councillors should focus on projects that could have positive impact on the lives of the people as well as improve service delivery.

She said despite the limited financial resources, councillors should work towards ensuring  that their common vision for the city remained attainable.

Ms Muzila said the projects marked for the city should be able to create more employment opportunities for the residents given the challenges faced by the mining and agricultural sectors in their region as of recent.

She explained that through Vision 2022, they intended to improve the economy of the city, reminding the councillors to take advantage of the vision when pursuing developments for the city.

The said in the past month, the investment committee attended different meetings with different companies to benchmark on the investment drive.

Furthermore, she said they were advised that in order for the city to achieve the vision, they needed capital for projects such as staffing, branding, planning, zoning, sales and marketing, project evaluation, policy advocacy and improving the investment climate.

Ms Muzila cited constraints in making progress with the investment drive and challenged all to create a good investment climate for the city.

She encouraged them to come up with sources of budget for their vision activities as a priority, adding that a lot has been done in terms of identifying and packaging some of the land investments.

Responding to the Mayor’s address, specially elected councillor Mr James Kgalajwe resolved that they need P1 million to be transferred to the investment company for them to be able to hire relevant staff and as well as to kick start industries to boost unemployment.

He noted that exporting raw materials to other countries meant loss for the nation, noting that there should be industries that will go through the process before exporting them.

Mr Kgalajwe also advised that business policies and regulations be amended so that they meet the demand of the investors. ENDS