21 Feb 2019

 Tonota Sub-district councillors learnt February 18 that there is an increase in the number of needy students at both brigades and technical colleges, who are being assisted with living allowance.

Tonota Sub-council chairperson, Col Anderson Moalosi said during his address to the sub-council that the number has increased from 140 to well over 400 in the 2018/19 period.

“This 100 per cent absorption of students to brigades and technical schools will worsen over expenditure that we have ever experienced under welfare votes,” he said, revealing that the January payment for the students in question stood at P437 066.

Nonetheless, Col Moalosi, who is also a councillor for Shashe Mooke, acknowledged efforts made by individuals and organisations towards the care of the needy.

Furthermore, he said that the sub-district was providing welfare services to 4 185 beneficiaries, out of which 1 260 are permanent, 272 temporary, 1 343 needy students, 179 children in need of care, 23 community home based care clients and 1 108 orphans.

On shelter, the sub-council chairperson told fellow councillors that a total of 24 destitute houses had been allotted to Tonota sub-district to construct during the 2018/19 financial year.

The houses, he relayed, included 15 non-remote area dwellers and nine remote area dwellers destitute houses.

He informed the house that all the nine Remote Area Dwellers Programme houses were complete and had been handed over to beneficiaries.

Of the 15 houses that were allotted destitute persons, only eight had been completed and handed over to owners, he said.

“Currently only seven projects are ongoing , six of which are above 50 per cent physical status while one is at 15 per cent,” he said, adding that only one out of four houses earmarked  for orphans was complete. 

The other three are progressing at 70 per cent, 55 per cent and 18 per cent respectively; a development he blamed squarely on the challenge of unavailability of plots, which he said took long to resolve. ENDS