17 Dec 2020

 Sowa Town policing area has registered a total of 30 cases of Gender Based Violence (GBV) of which nine has been completed before courts while 21 are still pending.

Speaking at a full council meeting on December 15 at Sowa town,  Sowa Town mayor, Mr Oliphant Mr Mfa however said these were the only reported cases hence he urged people to come out and report incidents to allow authorities to deal with it accordingly. 

 He applauded governments’ efforts to fight the scourge by amongst others drafting the sex offender’s bill which would establish sex offender register. Also he said the government’s effort to create police toll free number for GBV cases as well as Child and Gender Protection Unit would contribute in the reduction of GBV alarming cases. Mr Mfa urged everyone to work together in finding the root cause of this disturbing behavior. 

On the education sector, Mr Mfa said the country was still battling the outbreak of COVID-19 especially at schools. However he said completing learners managed to sit for their examinations and there was no one on isolation during exam time.

He noted that due to lack of funds and personnel, Nxakato Junior Secondary School form three pupils were not assessed to identify those with educational gaps.

Mr Mfa stated that even though the school was adopted by Botswana Accountancy College (BAC) under the adopt a school initiative, this year the assistance was not accorded due to shortage of funds at the college.

He thereby requested councilors to pledge any amount to Nxakato JSS to assist the school to improve its results, which were not impressive.

Mr Mfa further explained that despite challenges brought about by COVID-19, all the development projects the district was undertaking were currently ongoing and some of these projects were completed notwithstanding other challenges such as shortage of materials from suppliers and the two months’ lockdown that the country experienced.

He said the completed projects were maintenance of fire station offices, construction of fashion and design lab, construction of ablution block and guard house at the poultry house as well as construction of science lab at Nxakato JSS. The mayor said refurbishment of porta cabins by the Ministry of Basic Education had been completed and pupils  had occupied them as a way of decongesting the hostels.

He mentioned that the construction of two blocks for boys and girls hostels as well as maintenance of Sowa Primary School were on-going and were expected to be completed when the schools open next year.

He stated that although the council’s recurrent budget was reduced by five per cent due to COVID-19, some of the funds were reinstated and the budget stood at P47.3m  from the initial P45m.

He said at the moment a total of 60 per cent of the total budget had been expended, a move which he said was commendable as they were still within budget despite the pandemic.

However, Mr Mfa said council was still not doing well in terms of revenue collection as the district had arrears of over P249 000 as at November 2020 adding that this was a bad image for the district.

He was worried that despite efforts made by the environmental health division to clean the town, some individuals continued to dump waste illegally, making the town an eyesore.

He said the same waste contributed in the malfunctioning of the storm water drainage system which exacerbates the storm water flow problems within town.

Mr Mfa said as a mitigation measure, roads and environmental divisions embarked on cleaning the township and all open spaces were cleared. ends