26 Feb 2020

A total of nine councils met in Jwaneng on Tuesday  for a consultative workshop to appreciate first hand, project implementation progress, achievements, challenges and map the way forward, especially on the provision of primary infrastructure through Constituency Community Projects (CCP), Economic Stimulus Programme (ESP) and road levy funding.

Officially opening the workshop, Assistant Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Mr Kgotla Autlwetse indicated that provision of appropriate infrastructure had been of great concern to the ministry as it was far from aiding government’s transformation dream.

He said one of the concerns was the low expenditure by councils, which he said stood at only 42 per cent for ESP phase III projects as of September last year.

“This is abysmal and we surely need a rebirth,” he said.

Mr Autlwetse said that as custodians of rural livelihoods, the ministry, through the councils, had a huge responsibility of ensuring local economic empowerment, yet they were committing the greatest injustice of failing to spend the money that could improve rural livelihoods in various ways.

“How many youth in our localities do we deny employment as a result of our inefficiency and ineffectiveness. How much percentage do we contribute directly to an already worrisome unemployment rate of 17.6 per cent,” he wondered.

Mr Autlwetse also warned the councils to ensure they closed all the loopholes that could allow corruption to creep in now that the procurement process had been decentralised to local government.

In their various presentations, different councils indicated that one of the major delays in completion of projects was tardiness of service providers such as Botswana Power Corporation and Water Utilities Corporation, which often took long to connect utilities despite having been fully paid.

They said such providers often issued quotations that were valid for about three months, which would expire or increase during project implementation while the councils’ budget was fixed.

The councils also complained about too much baby sitting of local contractors even when they delayed in delivering projects, saying that more stern measures needed to be taken against them.

Another challenge that is a cause for delay is that the projects are community based, which means that members of the community expect to be consulted, and sometimes even on decisions that should be made by the office.

Later in  an interview, the director of the Department of Community Development, Mr Steven Ludick indicated that the procedure for community based projects was that councils had to first consult the community, then councillors and MP for the area before making a project memorandum, which he admitted was a long process.

He therefore advised councils to always ensure that pre-tender process such as seeking of land and project designs were done in time such that when the financial year starts, they go straight into awarding the tenders.

Deputy council secretary for Kweneng District, Mr Eric Puskas however indicated that they had a challenge of doing pre-tender process because of shortage of human resource, saying in most instances they even went to the extent of requesting assistance of human resource from other councils or engaged temporary officers.

He said the other challenge was a tendency by the political leadership to change project memorandum to the extent that they were sometimes forced to go as far back as project design, a delay he said hampered the very aim of the projects, which was to help Batswana through employment creation.

For his part, the senior assistant council secretary for Charleshill Sub-district, Mr Christopher Maramba advised his counterparts to establish project monitoring committee to keep an eye on their projects from start to finish, including monitoring during implementation.

He also said that it was vital that projects were completed on time as Batswana, especially those in villages depended on them for empowerment.

Meanwhile Jwaneng mayor, Ms Olga Ditsie advised council heads to always be open about their challenges so that solutions could be found since government’s decisions were based on their professional advice, and that councils should also use such fora to share ideas, especially on burning issues of monitoring and evaluation of projects. ENDS