17 Jan 2021

The City of Francistown has been advised to reduce its budget by 16 per cent following a 1.6 per cent budget reduction by the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development for the 2021/22 financial year.

Mayor of Francistown, Mr Godisang Radisigo said it did not come as a surprise as throughout the current financial year government had to occasionally revise the budget and put in place measures intended to reduce excessive expenditure.

He said it was done in order to mitigate against the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economy.

The mayor said the expenditure for this financial year was at 71 per cent of the total provision, and that since the bulk of the budget was for personal emoluments, they needed  to cut all unnecessary spending.

“However, as we struggle to make the necessary adjustments, we need to ensure that our priority areas are catered for,” he said.

Mr Radisigo noted that their priorities remained maintenance of infrastructure, provision of social support and facilitation of partnerships with the private sector to stimulate local economic development.

The city council, he said, had to ensure that it’s recurrent and development budget complemented each other to cater for the priorities.

He said the council needed to intensify cost recovery measures and income generation in order to be able to provide the required service. He noted that government’s capacity to generate income had been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mr Radisigo urged councillors to exercise prudent financial management and to give feedback to stakeholders in terms of council’s capacity to provide the necessary services and the need to intensify cost recovery.

The chairperson of the finance committee and councillor for Itekeng Ward, Mr Lesego Kwambala said Francistown had proposed the 2021/22 budget at more than P257 million. He said P219 million was Revenue Support Grant (RSG) which has been revised downwards by over P179 million.

Cllr Kwambala said all departments had to adjust their budgets by the same 16 per cent to accommodate the revised ceiling that was provided.

He said the council should be prudent and identify revenue collection strategies, adding that there should be public education to alert the public about the importance of paying rates, adding that the council would use the funds for other developments.

In response to Cllr Kwambala’s presentation, councillors wanted to know why they were given the same amount as Sub-district councils while they were a city council.

They called for the use of public address system in order to remind residents to pay their rates. They also suggested that revenue collectors should work on a rotational bases across all wards of the city to collect debts. Ends