12 Feb 2019

Local Government and Rural Development senior management has been implored to come up with robust strategies to improve both revenue collection and implementation of projects.

In his keynote address at the ministry’s senior management forum in Gaboroner on Monday, Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Mr Frans Van Der Westhuizen expressed concern that project implementation was lagging behind in his ministry.

Over and above that, revenue collection stood at more than P113 million against the targeted more than P2.2 billion collection. 

This, Mr Van Der Westhuizen said, made collection of 38 per cent as at December 2018, adding that “the same issue of under collection extends to rates and service levy, which were 14.3 per cent and 4.4 per cent, respectively."

“You will agree with me that the state of affairs if left unchecked will render local government ineffective,” he added.

To address these problems, the minister urged managers to mobilise resources within their districts, departments and between themselves to enhance efficient implementation of projects and programmes and ensure timeous service delivery.

He said Batswana and government were decrying poor service delivery compounded by among others, poor work ethic. 

Between 2016/2017 to 2018/2019, Mr Van Der Westhuizen said the ministry, through the minister’s phone in session, received 228 complaints.

Although these complaints were seemingly decreasing, he said, “our clients have become more educated with increased demand for quality service which meets or exceeds their expectations. This therefore requires us to be above par and always put customer satisfaction ahead of everything else”.

Due to slow implementation of projects, Minister Van Der Westhuizen said his ministry’s implementation stood as follows; primary schools backlog eradication performance average around 10 per cent, destitute housing stood at 31.8 per cent, maintenance projects stood at 25 per cent, whilst constituency development projects were still at tendering stage with some at various stages of implementation.

Consequently, he said, the development budget for the current year had been revised downwards to reflect the implementation capacity of the public private sectors to execute projects.

Furthermore, as the ministry was now on its second year of implementing its five-year strategy, the minister said there was need to draw lessons learnt from its 2018/2019 annual performance plan.

He also urged senior officers to critically analyse the ministry’s previous performance and come up with innovative strategies that would guide the ministry.

The forum was meant for the ministry to take stock of what it has achieved, the challenges it encountered and come up with strategies on how best it can close the gaps. ends