12 Feb 2020

 Gaborone City mayor Father Maphongo has called for calm and constructive criticism among councillors as they discuss budget proposals for the year 2020/2021. 

Mr Maphongo said during the special full council on Tuesday that the council had pressing issues to be dealt with that required the councillors’ undivided attention.

He cited, among others, the non-functioning streetlights, storm water drainage and cleanliness of the city as some of the issues that required immediate attention.

“When the city is dark, thieves normally take advantage of the cover of darkness and terrorise residents”, he said.

The Mayor, therefore, said it was important for the councillors to remain focused in their discussions, saying by so doing, members would earn respect and ultimately achieve the objective of developing the lives of the people.

He said if a member does not respect others, there was a very high chance that they would get resistance from colleagues, saying the ultimate price of resistance would be poor service delivery.

He said the budget speech had called for deliberate measures for citizen empowerment, hence the need for councillors to introspect their role in the empowerment of their own.

Furthermore, Mr Maphongo applauded those who had already started the clean city campaign in their respective wards, saying for Gaborone to be a model city, it should be clean, safe and techno-savvy.

He said a techno-savvy city must have functional operation lines and hot spots so as to enable the community to access Wi-Fi for free and do businesses without necessarily having to visit government offices.

Moreover, he said areas such as the city centre should be turned into a cultural hub, where a hive of economic activities takes place.

 

The Mayor also challenged the councillors to look for ways of improving the lives of the electorate and how they could increase the council’s revenue. ENDS