18 Dec 2017

Gaborone City Council (GCC) clerk, Mr Mpho Mathe says he is not aware of any instance where the council took issues of gender equality without seriousness.

He said the council took all issues it dealt with at a formal level seriously at all times.

Mr Mathe, who was responding to a question from councillor Rhoda Sekgororoane, said it was important to note that all prospective candidates were given equal opportunities on issues such as recruitment. He added that on other issues such as procurement, existing positive discriminatory policies were applied.

Ms Sekgororoane questioned whether the council took seriously the issue of gender disparity or gender equality.

On another issue, Mr Mathe said the city council had never displayed lack of seriousness in the collection of cut trees and branches as claimed. He said the collection was directly related to the availability of resources.

The town clerk said it was important to appreciate that the vegetation control peak time was also the peak time for other services that required trucks such as the delivery of school food supplies, stationary, gravel and roads maintenance materials. He added that the city council would always be compelled to rationalise available trucks towards the higher order needs.

He said during the last financial year, the city council budgeted for and procured a shredder machine that had helped in reducing the volume of vegetation and speeding the process of disposing it.

Ms Sekgororoane wanted to know whether the council took seriously the issue of collection of tree branches that were cut through Ipelegeng.

Regarding the issue of asbestos structures, Mr Mathe said Botswana had long ceased to use asbestos for habitable purposes due to its carcinogenic nature.

Mr Mathe added that the development of permanent structures required capital and that it could not be done using the recurrent budget.

He noted that  pre-fabricated structures were temporary by nature. He said the material used for the construction of the adjudication office was a gypsum board or dry wall while that of the executive conference room was aluminium framed glazed panels  or curtain wall.

Ms Sekgororoane wanted to know why the city council  has continued to construct mini board rooms out of asbestos instead of extending existing structures which had more room and would be permanent.

He said the maintenance of street lights at Block 5 had been outsourced to a private contractor who was currently on site, and awaiting the delivery of material from suppliers, adding that their target was to have more than 80 per cent of the street lights functioning by the end of quarter four of 2017/18.

Ms Sekgororoane had wanted the city council to state when it would attend to the street lights in Block 5. BOPA