28 Jul 2020

Gaborone Mayor, Mr Father Maphongo has warned councillors that 2020/2021 financial year was going to be a challenging one as the budget had been cut due to COVID-19.

Addressing the GCC full council meeting on July 27, Mr Maphongo challenged them to come up with innovative ways to finance projects, saying it was going to be a long wait before the council’s budget could improve. 

He said achieving their set objectives was going to be problematic, a situation he said would threaten their seats.

He said the budget that they approved in February and implemented in April was P439 154 900, but had to be revised downwards following the COVID-19 pandemic. He further said the revenue support grant was revised from P285 133 676 to a paltry P269 520 671, a reduction of over P15 million.

The Mayor said the budget revisions forced the council to re-prioritise and adequate provision was made on critical expenditure items such as personnel emoluments, social benefits, school stationery and equipment, running contracts and paying of utilities.

Mr Maphongo, however, said more emphasis was placed on hygiene supplies, sanitation and water provision at schools so as to comply with the COVID-19 protocols, stating that as at the end of June, the council expenditure stood at over P67.7 million. 

“Councillors, the reality has hit us, we need to be more innovative in how we are going to finance our projects going forward as the budgetary allocation will not allow us to undertake our projects at the pace we want to,” he said.

He said partnering with the private sector through the Public Private Partnership (PPP) was the way to go, also emphasising the need to embrace some forms of fund- raising such as the municipal bonds, which would need due care when rolling them out to avoid over committing the council and government.

Mr Maphongo said collection of revenue had been a challenge and the council thus continued to encounter cash flow problems, citing that the total collection including the revenue support grant stood at about P85.2 million.

He said the Finance and General Purpose committee was currently working on revenue collection and cost saving strategy, saying once done, it would be presented to the council.

He therefore appealed to councillors to encourage their constituents to pay service fees and rates to enable the council to deliver services.

Mr Maphongo said since the problem of finance would not be resolved any time soon, it would be ideal for the council to privatise provision of selected services in which private sector could effectively deliver.

He said during the last national budget, the Minister of Finance and Economic Development committed to reviewing the PPP policy to make it more facilitative, as the policy in its current form was not facilitative, which made it difficult for councils to be self-sustainable. ENDS