05 Jul 2020

Selebi Phikwe Town Council (SPTC) will not undertake constituency projects due to limited finances.

The town’s mayor, Mr Lucas Modimana, stated during a full council meeting on Friday that there had been a P7.2 million cut in the recurrent budget and a P20 million reduction in the development budget leading to no community constituency projects in the current financial year.

Mr Modimana said Ipelegeng programme budget was cut from P15.3m in the last financial year to P10.8 in the current and focus would be on completing projects from the previous years.

He said the council was working on a recovery plan that would highlight the challenges encountered, interventions and strategies and a report would be shared with the council.

On other matters, Mr Modimana appealed to councillors and the community to adhere to the COVID-19 protocols.

Councillors, however, expressed discontent on their lack of involvement during the extreme social distancing period.

They said had they been a part of the COVID-19 household assessment and food distribution process, queries would have been minimal.

Councillors also raised a concern over recruitment of scorpions.

They alleged that some quit work because government paid them through Ipelegeng programme instead of the promised  B3 salary scale.  

Councillors requested that COVID-19 scorpions be paid as per the agreement.  

Some commended the council for maintaining school toilets and installing hand wash basins in response to COVID-19 protocols.

They requested for inclusion of phane in the COVID-19 relief food packages in order to empower harvesters, especially that they could not sell outside the borders.

The town clerk, Mr Stephen Motlogelwa, said none of the scorpions quit work and their salaries were still under discussion.

Rather, he said those who quit were Ipelegeng workers who complained that their earnings were not enough to allow them to fend for themselves while at work since they were no longer provided with food.

He also explained that during extreme social distancing period, only essential workers were allowed movement, hence the difficult to engage them at that time. Ends