11 Feb 2020

Councillors in Francistown have approved a 2020/21 recurrent budget of over P231 million.

When presenting the budget during Francistown full council meeting recently, chairperson of finance and general purpose committee, Councillor Lesego Kwambala, said the recurrent budget served the council’s  daily operations.

Mr Kwambala said the total budget proposal for the year 2020/21 was a nominal increase of five per cent from last year’s budget.

From the total budget, he said the Revenue Support Grant (RSG) was over P193 million, which was 85.3 per cent of the total budget and the council had to collect P38 million.

He said 60 per cent (which translated to over P139 million) went to personnel emoluments such as salaries, overtimes and pension contributions leaving the council with 39.7 per cent or over P92 million for other priorities.

Mr Kwambala said P92 million or 23 per cent of the budget went towards payment of utility costs such as prepaid electricity for tower lights which he said had proved to be very costly, street lights and utilities at the different facilities including primary schools.

He noted that the bills were high at primary schools because of old water reticulation infrastructure that resulted in underground leakages, adding that there was need for replacement of such, despite the limited budget.

Cllr Kwambala called on school management to be cautious of the situation and further requested all stakeholders to timely respond to such leakages and maintenance reports.

He highlighted that while the installation of tower lights improved illumination of the City, it was proving to be very costly and not sustainable as such, he suggested that it was time to consider the use of solar energy to reduce costs.

On the other hand, Cllr Kwambala said that over P4.4 million was reserved for maintenance of council infrastructure, P3.9 million for the provision of vulnerable groups, P4 million for education requirements at primary schools, P15 million to cater for the security of council facilities and over P7.3 million for waste collection.

He said on the issue of waste collection, it was worth mentioning that the idea was to outsource the service throughout the whole City but because of budgetary constraints, that had not been possible.

Cllr Kwambala urged residents of Francistown to pay their rates and noted that his committee would go around the City addressing Kgotla meetings to sensitize the community about the importance of paying for council services.

For their part, Councillors said that while they approve the budget, it was imperative for the council to conduct public education for people to pay their dues. They said that long queues at revenue office and shortage of staff led to people getting disgruntled and postponing payments.

They suggested that the City Council should consider partnering with Botswana Post so that when the elderly go for their pensions, they could also pay the rates.

They also urged government to remove bottlenecks and laws that hinders development. ENDS