21 May 2019

Councillor Thatayaone Kehitile of Dukwi has blamed bureaucracy on the delay of implementation of projects at Tutume Sub-district Council.

He was responding to a compliant raised by Dukwi Village Development Committee chairperson, Mr Boinyana Lesole, during a kgotla meeting addressed by Member of Parliament for Nata/Gweta, Mr Polson Majaga recently.

Mr Lesole had stated that from the constituency funding, they were allocated P150 000 for construction of water system toilets at Tachibona Primary School during 2017-2018 financial year, but until to date nothing was happening.

Furthermore, he lamented that for 2018-2019, they were allocated P1.5 million for a water tank still through the fund and still no progress while the community continued to struggle with water.

Mr Lesole also complained that Tirelo Sechaba participants were abandoning the programme without notification.

However, Cllr Kehitile said follow-ups made with council authorities indicated that all projects were at adjudication stage.

He decried lack of power by politicians to take action to push for their projects to be completed in time as per the development plan.

On the toilet project, he explained that toilets were done through the backlog eradication programme in 2004 during the expansion of classrooms at the school.

He nonetheless said since they were built, they had never worked hence the decision to re-construct them.

He added that in the meantime pupils continued to use overflowing pit latrines.

Cllr Kehitile, however, proposed that it was high time constituency fund be managed from constituency offices, because the council seemed overwhelmed by management of many projects.

For his part, MP Majaga said Tirelo Setshaba programme gave graduates and youth an opportunity to gain work experience to prepare them for full-time employment, he added.

Mr Majaga said it was imperative for young people to take such initiatives seriously and make use of them.

In addition, Mr Majaga informed the reisdents that the President had outlined in his roadmap that he was going to transform the country’s economy to become a knowledge based economy in order to grow and diversify it from being mineral based.

He thus implored Batswana to play a meaningful role in growing the economy.

Mr Majaga promised to engage council authorities on concerns raised to ensure that projects were completed. ENDS