19 Feb 2020

Mahalapye Sub-district Council has approved an estimate of more than P156 million as its budget for the 2020/2021 financial year.

Addressing Mahalapye council meeting on February 18 chairperson, Mr Banthasetse Merementsi said it was disheartening that the funds would not be enough to run the organisation, ‘taking into consideration that we had a deficit of P30.8 million as at March 31, 2019.’

This deficit, Mr Merementsi said negatively affected the council’s cash balance at the bank, which resulted in non-payment for services.

“As Council, we need to adopt stringent measures to ensure the deficit does not increase.

In addition we need to strengthen our revenue collection strategies and come up with new income generation streams to increase our revenue base, as it is evident that the funding we get from the government is not sufficient resulting in compromised service delivery and delayed roll out of development,” he said.

The chairperson urged all council members to ensure prudent use of funds, emphasising that it was clear that the budget was not sufficient. He also encouraged the councilors to work together towards achieving government initiatives.

“In other words, let’s do more with less. It is also our duty as civil leaders to ensure that government initiatives are implemented and beneficiaries of such fully benefit,” he added.

Giving an update on infrastructure development and maintenance, Mr Merementsi said the sub-district was currently undertaking maintenance in primary schools, amounting to more than P12.7 million.

While some projects were completed, he said others were ongoing and expected to be completed before end of the current financial year.

However, he said the allocated funds were not sufficient to cover all maintenance needs, ‘because a lot of schools are dilapidated and cyclic maintenance of them were done long time back’. Mr Merementsi said the roads in Mahalapye were in poor state owing to poor drainage infrastructure, adding ‘ we have since proposed for the funding of Mahalapye Drainage Master Plan under the District Development Plan 8 mid-term review’.

He said council maintenance needs had been submitted to headquarters to be considered for funding under the Road Levy fund.

Furthermore, Mr Merementsi said the average percentage for Mahalapye Sub-District Council illumination level was at 78 per cent against the required standard of 90 per cent and that Mahalapye Sub-District Council did not have funds to procure the required materials to carry out maintenance of streetlights.

“The streetlights route that require major maintenance are Kaytee to Four Way Stop, RJ Junction to Fredrick and Four Way Stop to Railways,” he said.

Additionally, he said the average for Mahalapye Sub-District Council working traffic lights was at 76 per cent against the required standard of 90 per cent. Currently, he said the Kaytees junction was off after it was damaged by a motorist in a road accident.

Mr Merementsi said the council was awaiting Marsh Insurance to appoint a contractor, adding that the other three traffic lights junctions were working but needed overhauling and re-programming to accommodate increased traffic in Mahalapye. ENDs