17 Jul 2019

 Francistown City Council (FCC)  has approved the 2020/21 financial year budget proposal of P220 336 280.

Presenting the budget proposal, Acting Deputy Mayor and Chairperson of the Finance Committee Ms Zibanani Benifield said the approved budget for the current year was a reduction of the initial proposal of P284 107 200.

Ms Benifield said in preparing the budget, a number of critical areas were considered such as maintenance of facilities like classrooms, staff housing, offices, roads and allied infrastructure.

Also considered, she said was provisions for vulnerable groups like destitute, orphans, people living with disabilities and provision for utility bills.

She said the budget also focused on provision for education requirements at primary schools and procurement of tools and equipment for Ipelegeng projects.

Ms Benifield further said the budget catered for other priorities such as branding of the city, extension of outsourced areas for waste collection, employment creation through implementation of programmes, projects and staff training especially on work based competencies (capacity building).

“It is against this backdrop that the budget proposals were formulated and presented where council structures had the opportunity to interrogate the budget for all the departments to ensure that it clearly captures council priorities as adequately as possible,” she said.

Ms Benifield noted that the city proposed over P270 million adding that the budget was made up of their own resources of revenue of P37.8 million and over P230 million as Revenue Grant from the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development.

She said their expenditure proposal was over P135 million (50 per cent) for Personnel Emoluments, Running Expenses at P59.3 million (22 per cent), Establishment Expenses at P20.2 million (7 per cent) and Special Expenses at P56.6 million thus 21 per cent.

Ms Benifield told the council that their major source of revenue was Property Tax (rates) at P15 million and Service Levy at P3.1 million which translated to 48 per cent of the total income budget.

She called on councillors to improve financial management by being prudent and efficient in budget execution and to explore other avenues of expanding council revenue sources so as to effectively carry out service delivery.

For their part, Councillors complained that the budget had over the years been static and that the revenue from the government was too small.

They complained of lack of progress in development and suggested that they should tax every vehicle that passes through Francistown.

They said Francistown should be given enough money like Selibe Phikwe to venture into projects that could create jobs as the mines in Francistown were also closed.

They also said that the Thapama Intersection commonly known as Spaghetti was not properly completed as it lacked some of the developments and components that were supposed to be included. Ends