26 Sep 2013

A special full council meeting of the Francistown City Council, called recently to give councillors feedback on the Mmasepala Investment Plan and plans to revive it, degenerated into rowdy affair when councilors heckled an official from the Botswana Association of Local Authorities (BALA) and forced him to stop his address prematurely.

Mr Steve Pheko, the secretary of the committee commissioned to investigate why the scheme faced challenges, found himself on the back foot as irate councillors asked for him to be chased out of the council chamber as they deemed his responses to be disrespectful to them. Mmasepala Wealth Plan is an investment scheme formed by BALA and Peo Boswa Insurance Brokers to foster a savings culture among councillors.

It also had a funeral cover component for councillors, council employees and their immediate family members. Since its inception it had been beset by problems which resulted in the underwriter, Metropolitan, suspending the scheme as it had failed to bring the anticipated 604 councillors countrywide who were expected to join.

In Francistown, for instance, only eight of the 22 councillors joined the scheme. At the beginning of the proceedings, the Mayor, Mr James Kgalajwe, informed civic leaders that BALA and Metropolitan had requested the meeting to be held in the committee room instead of the council chamber, something which the councillors refused as they wanted to know under which committee they would be meeting.

It was at this point that the mayor gave in to pressure from councilors and allowed BALA to present. Presenting his finding on why the scheme did not go as planned, Mr Pheko explained that the Mmasepala Wealth Plan faced challenges as the funeral scheme had targeted 604 councillors each contributing P23.60. He also said that some councillors wanted to join the funeral scheme only without the investment element which required a P176.00 contribution. This, he said, resulted in the scheme managing to register more than 300 members.

“It was at this point that Metropolitan came to us complaining that the numbers were low while they were already spending on funeral cover, hence it did not make business sense,” he highlighted.

Consequently, he noted, when they went to their conference, Peo Boswa had already received a letter from Metropolitan with the intention to terminate the relationship. At this point, he noted that BALA constituted a team of councillors who had knowledge of insurance issues and sat down with the underwriter to iron out issues.

“One of the things we discovered was that the scheme was never marketed well despite being a good initiative,” he said. “Also some people had already contributed money when the underwriter wanted to stop the funeral scheme and councillors decided that both schemes should be discontinued.”

Some councillors, he mentioned, gave out insufficient information and never held policies with the underwriter because of this. On other issues, he explained that they convinced Metropolitan who showed willingness to continue with scheme provided the numbers went up.

Councillors then  took turns to discredit the BALA leadership, including Mr Pheko who had earlier told them that they were the ones who elected the leadership last year and should be able to remove them if they failed to deliver. First to fire the salvos at the BALA executive was Cllr Tabengwa Tabengwa of Ikageleng, who wanted to understand how the committee which met Metropolitan was appointed as they were never consulted as BALA members.

“Even the Francistown BALA regional chairman does not know the criteria used to appoint the committee,” he argued.

Cllr Tabengwa requested the mayor to order the BALA official out of the council chamber as he was taking them for granted through his unsatisfactory responses. Cllr Biki Mbulawa of Phillip Matante ward said that he did not believe the plan could be resuscitated again. He said after joining the scheme for 11 months he lost a family member.

“When I tried to claim from the funeral scheme I was sent from pillar to post until today I have not received anything until I was informed that the scheme had been suspended. Therefore I am expecting BALA to come here and give me my contributions back.”

Cllr Ford Moiteela, mentioned that they joined the scheme to support BALA and help themselves. He observed that during their congress, they tried to raise the issues of concern but the BALA leadership was in a hurry to conclude matters.

“The BALA leadership does not listen and had they listened, this crisis would have been averted,” he said. “If the leadership does not change we shall forever be in such challenges.” However, unlike others he believed that the scheme could be resuscitated and suggested that the committee should pay arrears for members who have defaulted.

Cllr Ephraim Maiketso argued that the scheme could not function well because of what he called dishonesty by some role players. ENDS