28 Aug 2019

The Southern District Council continues to battle with waste management services due to insufficient funds and resources.

This was said by the council chairperson, Mr Alec Seametso at the Clean-up the World day at Mabutsane on August 27.

Mr Seametso said the issue was further compounded by the fact that Batswana had not yet embraced paying for services such as household litter collection.

He said if Batswana continued to shun paying for such services, it was likely to cripple many councils across the country financially as waste collection was an expensive exercise.

“People should not put all the burden of sanitation services on government. They should do their part by paying for such services so that councils can sustain themselves,” he said.

Mr Seametso also indicated that failure by councils to collect waste had the potential to affect community members as it was a health hazard.

He also said council took a decision during the 2017/18 financial year to outsource solid waste collection services to individual sub-districts in order to be awarded to small businesses such as donkey carts operators.

That, he said, would create employment, unlike the initial arrangement where the tender was awarded to a single company with little benefits trickling down to community members.

Mr Seametso also decried the habit by some individuals to litter the environment with dangerous materials such as clinical waste.

On the global arena, Mr Seametso cautioned that climate change needed to be addressed rapidly at a global scale, saying it would require commitment from individuals.

He noted that individual efforts included, among others, recycling of material and tree planting. He  encouraged each village to set a target of trees that they would plant annually.

Principal environmental officer, Ms Khumo Boima said the event was meant to help villages share and introspect on issues of cleanliness as well as to look for a way forward where they had failed.

She also said they wanted to create a platform to showcase products made from recycled material.

At the event, Mogonye emerged victorious as the cleanest village in the Southern District in the small villages category, with Kgomokasitwa winning the medium villages category and Mabule crowned the cleanest in the large villages category.

Mabutsane Sub-district won the cleanest sub-district category, followed by Good Hope Sub-district and Kanye Administrative Authority. Ends