17 Sep 2019

North West District councillors have been commended for working collectively to ensure council delivers the desired services.

Delivering a speech at a full council session which marks the end of term for incumbent councillors, chairperson, Mr Duncan Enga thanked his fellow councillors, saying they showed commitment and hard work to ensure the council achieved some of its planned projects.

Their hard work, he said, could not go unrecognised as they laboured for days in council committees making decisions that led to the successes the council had realised for the past five years.  

Mr Enga also appreciated support from other local authorities, heads of department and other stakeholders despite all the challenges and differing views on some issues. He expressed happiness that they all worked collectively to deliver the mandate of the district.

When sharing some of the achievements and challenges encountered during his term, the council chairperson said they did not reach optimal performance as far as implementation was concerned.

He appreciated that they could have achieved more had they planned, coordinated and monitored the projects and programmes well.

Mr Enga called upon all stakeholders involved in the district development to commit to improved livelihoods for communities.

He urged them to avoid cost overruns and deliver projects within set times and specifications.

One other issues, he said corruption allegations kept cropping up during his tenure, noting that it was against the government’s pledge of zero tolerance to corruption.

The chairperson warned all those involved in corruption to desist from such practices as they had negative outcomes.

Mr Enga also informed councillors that the council took the decision to establish sub districts in Shakawe and Sehithwa in an effort to render efficient and effective service delivery to communities.

“At the time of approval, the country suffered the world economic recession and due to financial constraints we were forced to operate the envisaged sub districts as service centres. Funds permitting, these service centres will in future be developed and upgraded to fully fledged sub districts,” he added.

The house learnt that the council only managed to operationalise the Shakawe Service Centre which was officially opened in June 2019.

He said the construction of the Sehithwa Service Centre was ongoing with the construction of a perimetre palisade fencing and guard room.  

Mr Enga pointed out that the district has planned to kick-start office construction by the third quarter of the current financial year and start full operations by the 2020/21 financial year.

With regard to social upliftment, he observed that since the inception of the poverty eradication programme, 7 059 members of the community had been mobilised out of which 4 552 had been assessed.

“From the assessed number, only 4 311 qualified to benefit from the programme and were subsequently approved for funding across the different implementing departments,” he said.

To date, he said 4 022 have been fully funded while 289 were awaiting funding.

He also indicated that 3 289 projects were operational with 294 excelling and 3 398 jobs created in the process.  

Despite efforts made, Mr Enga stated that the programme was not smooth sailing as it was affected by implementation challenges. He added that chief amongst them was shortage of markets for beneficiaries to sell their produce and lack of commitment from some.

As an intervention measure, he revealed that the coordination office was dedicated to devise new strategies to market beneficiaries’ produce.

He said beneficiaries would also be encouraged to work as teams under group projects to benefit from strengths that were realised by teamwork.

In addition, he said they would also be capacitated on pricing their produce to be competitive in the market.

Lastly, he said the council would continue providing psycho-social support as a long term strategy to revitalise commitment amongst beneficiaries. ENDS