30 May 2018

Jwaneng Town Council has no new development projects for the 2018/19 financial year, deputy mayor, Ms Olga Ditsie has said.

Addressing a full council session on May 30, Ms Ditsie said the council would instead implement the nine carryover projects from the last financial year, which comprised constituency community projects as well as those under the ESP programme.

She said so far, the supply and installation of public outdoor gyms had been completed and expected to start operating next month after finalisation of the management plan.

Ms Ditsie said a project memorandum for constituency community projects for this financial year had been approved and they were expecting to purchase seven Botswana Housing Corporation (BHC) houses for the Ward Development Committees (WDC).

However, she noted that some of the projects were lagging behind and were still at tender evaluation stage.

“The constituency community projects are the ones seriously lagging behind as the construction of the market stalls, curio shop, vendor stalls and associated electrical works are still at tender evaluation stage,” she said.

On ESP projects, she said the construction of one classroom and one toilet block for Teemane and Kgalagadi primary schools each had been completed and handed over.

Furthermore, the deputy mayor said insurance had funded maintenance of both the multi-purpose hall and the bus rank.

She said while maintenance works for the bus rank were already complete, the contractor was still on site at the multi-purpose hall and was scheduled to complete by the end of this month.

She said other planned maintenance projects included pots at four primary schools and school facilities at Dinonyane and Teemane primary schools.

She said the former had already commenced while the latter was still at tender documentation stage.

Mogale Ward councillor, Mr Ronicah Ntsimako said he was pleased that the multi-purpose hall was finally undergoing maintenance since it had been dilapidated for a long time.

He however expressed concern at the delay in implementing the constituency development projects which were intended to give the township the desired facelift.

Cllr Ntsimako said the planned market stalls were long overdue so that they could help organise the informal sector, which was currently facing shortage of operational space.

The chairperson of the Jwaneng Chamber of Commerce, Mr Julius Sebako also underscored the need to speed up the construction of market stalls.

He said the township was currently not appealing to investors as hawkers were setting up everywhere.

The provision of market stalls, he said, would go a long way in improving the commercial site of the township hence attracting investors. ENDS