04 Mar 2020

Central District Councillors have been encouraged to ensure that measures to curb wastage are put in place to positively contribute towards the growth of the economy.

Officially opening the Central District Council (CDC) meeting on Monday, the chairperson of CDC Mr Ketshwereng Galeragwe said the district was faced with shortage of finances as it was starting a new era on a highly compromised liquidity position.

“We are starting our term with an accrued cumulative deficit of around P74 million in our general fund and the situation is likely to be worse at the close of our books of final accounts at the end of the current financial year,” he said.

Mr Galeragwe therefore said that such a situation called for CDC to start thinking outside the box in order to meet the peoples’ expectations, noting that the wage bill for CDC increased by 15 per cent on average as compared to the eight per cent of the overall budget.

He however said that there was a need to put heads together to strategise on ways that could assist in delivering services without necessarily having to rely on the support grant.

He said it was crucial for all to find innovative ways of addressing the development needs within the limited expected revenues and also adopt deliberate cost control and saving measures.

Mr Galeragwe said that he would cause his management to table before the house, in the foreseeable future, the Cost Saving Strategy that had been referred to the council by the previous one.

As for the development, he said the budget speech indicated that the ministry of Local Government  and Rural Development had been allocated P1.25 billion in order to continue implementation of social protection programmes and village infrastructure projects.

The proposed projects under the ministry include primary school backlog eradication programme, community development projects, internal roads and tribal administration infrastructure development. 

He however said such were a drop in the ocean looking at the number of districts that had to benefit from the money that the ministry had been allocated.

Mr Galeragwe said that the budget had become tight and only two new major road projects were mentioned for the district, notwithstanding the fact that it was the biggest in the country. 

The projects include Dibete-Mookane-Machaneng and Mmandiunyane-Shashe-Mooke roads.

He further said that CDC was implementing the Tutume infrastructure, which was anticipated to be completed by March 2020 at an estimated cost of around P315 926 392. 

He said this meant that when it was completed, the projects that would be left would be the implementation of the Economic Stimulus Programme constituency projects.  ENDS