24 Mar 2021

The roll-out of COVID-19 vaccines will utilise existing structures and coordinate with relevant sectors in order to reach the target population.

Addressing a virtual full council meeting of the City of Francistown, mayor Godisang Radisigo said the vaccine would be administered in three phases. He said in the first phase health care workers and frontline workers would be vaccinated followed by adults aged 55 years and above with co-morbidity as well as groups in critical areas of the economy. He said phase three would include  80 per cent of ages 18-54 without co-morbidities.

The mayor also said 32 sites comprising of kgotlas, the civic hall, open spaces and clinics had been earmarked to be used during vaccination.

Mayor Radisigo also told councillors that the city council was experiencing a serious shortage of manpower, especially doctors and nurses.

He noted that the District Health Management Team (DHMT) was serviced by only 18 medical doctors, including five temporary ones employed for isolation centres at Ntshe and Matsiloje.

He said strategies would have to be devised to deliver the service with the limited resources at their disposal.

On waste management services, the mayor said the city council has shown some improvements. He attributed that to the initiative to expand the outsourcing of waste collection and disposal to Gerald Estates in the 2021/22 financial year.

“Successful outsourcing of Gerald Estates demonstrates our long-held view that privatisation improves overall effectiveness of government spending in terms of impact and socio-economic returns since it improves service delivery and creates more employment opportunities,” he said.

The mayor urged the city council to identify other areas that could be outsourced. He urged them to explore ways of acquiring enough capacity to implement some projects through Public Private Partnerships (PPP).

Mayor Radisigo also urged the city council to critically manage its procurement processes in order to achieve efficiency in spending.ENDS