02 Mar 2017

Letlhakeng Sub-district chairperson, Councillor Tlotlo Batlhophi has expressed concern that despite various government interventions to reduce poverty, the sub-district continues to register more people for assistance.

Officially opening the last sub-council forum for this financial year recently, Cllr Batlhophi said people came for assistance as either destitute persons, needy students or orphans.

To date, he said the sub-district had 937 registered orphans, 1 794 destitute persons, 1 552 needy students, 40 Children in Need of Care, seven Community Home Based Care patients as well as 248 for disability allowances.

He said the increase in numbers meant serious financial implications for the sub-council as votes meant for beneficiaries’ upkeep get exhausted well before time. 

“The increasing numbers also translate to overwhelming workload for the officers, which might lead to compromised service delivery,” he said, and thus pleaded with the councillors to help disseminate information to the electorate on the importance of utilising various government empowerment initiatives.

He also informed the forum that the sub-district had been allocated P7 million from the Department of Social Protection for running the orphan care programme.

He said in addressing other needs of registered orphans the sub-district sent 28 of them for a retreat late last year as a way of providing them with psycho-social support as well as to prepare them for transition from childhood to adolescence.

On other issues, Cllr Batlhophi commended the villages that did well in the ‘Clean up the World Commemoration Day’ that was held in Malwelwe late last year.

He however expressed concern that during village inspections conducted prior to the commemoration it was apparent that some residents were not committed to properly handling the waste they produced as was evidenced by lack of household waste receptacles.

Cllr Batlhophi therefore urged councillors to encourage their electorate to have refuse receptacles in their homesteads and start paying for waste collection services.

He also said that in its endeavour to keep the sub-district clean and empower the local communities, the sub-council had outsourced waste collection services to small scale community based refuse contractors in all the villages except Letlhakeng.

He said this was in addition to 32 casual labourers engaged in the sub-district to do litter-picking and collection.

Appraising the forum on the land registration exercise, Cllr Batlhophi said that as of December last year the Letlhakeng Sub-land Board had managed only 35 per cent of total expected registration while Motokwe Sub-land Board stood at 65.6 per cent.

He said the finalisation of additional statistics after the extension of registration was still ongoing while there was no further advice on non-registered plots.

He said the waiting list for Letlhakeng Sub-land Board area of jurisdiction currently stood at 6 293 for residential and 1 123 for ploughing fields while that of Motokwe Sub-land Board stood at 2 098 for residential and 1 715 for ploughing fields. ENDS