10 Feb 2020

North East District Council (NEDC) plans to pay clients through cellphone banking services instead of cash.

Delivering the recurrent budget proposal for the 2020/21 financial year recently, chairperson of the finance and general purpose committee, Councillor Kudzani Tobokwani said a task team would conduct consultations to inform stakeholders about the intended development.

He said several companies offered cellphone money transfer, hence urging the council to leverage on that.

He stated that the process would be efficient because it would save time for both council and its clientele citing that Ipelegeng workers queued at post offices at the end of the month to get their dues.

Mr Tobokwani urged his colleagues to rally behind this new development as well support the task team when it pitches this development to people.

He indicated that consultations would commence this month, adding that a schedule of meetings would be made available.

The chairperson stated that the 2020/21 NEDC revenue support grant was pegged at P169 780 450 and an additional income from own source of P8 400 030, which was an eight per cent increase from the past year.

He highlighted that during the year, 2018/19 NEDC was allocated P166 179 150 constituting of revenue support grant amounting to P156  913 287.

Mr Tobokwani further noted that council spent a total of P155 716 376 and raised revenue of P7 million. He stated that the council did not collect revenue as planned, therefore, he emphasized the need to intensify revenue collection to avoid budget deficit.

Councilor Tobokwani also stated that NEDC had been identified as one of the district where Local Economic Development (LED) would be rolled out in the year 2020/21.

The LED task team, he stated had completed the local assessment report and would soon start working on the strategy, which once finished, would be presented to communities and the council.

Council chairperson, Councilor Florah Mpetsane urged every client with outstanding Self Help Housing Agency (SSHA) loan to service their loans on a monthly basis to avoid audit queries.

She stated that payment of SHHA loans was slow especially for clients who did not have bank accounts to link to government paying system.

Councilor Mpetsane therefore pleaded with councillors to raise awareness on the importance of servicing their loans during Kgotla meetings in their respective wards. Ends