24 Mar 2021

Deputy mayor of Gaborone City Council (GCC), Mr Lotty Manyepetsa says there has been a decrease in the number of needy members of the community assisted by the council.

Addressing GCC’s first virtual full council meeting in Gaborone on Monday, Mr Manyepetsa said the decrease was due to graduated orphans and needy pupils who had completed school.

The councillor noted that 1 267 beneficiaries were registered and assisted by council with different safety nets as compared to 1 417 in the previous quarter.

The deputy mayor also said the 1 267 beneficiaries included 237 destitute persons, 218 needy pupils, 94 children in need of care, 31 home based care patients and 687 orphans.

The city council, he said, had registered 1 350 people with various disabilities, adding that since inception the disability cash transfer allowance programme, 619 people with disabilities were assessed.

He noted that out of the 619 people, 422 were recommended for the allowance while the remaining 197 did not qualify, adding that assessments were ongoing on a monthly basis.

Mr Manyepetsa highlighted that the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, through the Department of Social Protection, had contracted Botswana Savings Bank (BSB) to administer payments to beneficiaries in the southern part of Botswana as well as in Mahalapye, Palapye and Serowe.

He said the provision of the service would be done through a VISA card to 41 700 beneficiaries in welfare programmes of old age pensioners, World War veterans, destitute persons and people with disability.

The deputy mayor explained that the services of the Social and Community Development (S&CD) agency had been decentralised across the five constituencies to address the outcry that the presence of social welfare and community development officers were not felt at wards.

In March 2021, he said officers servicing Marapoathutlwa had moved to Block 8 kgotla offices whilst a porta cabin was being erected to accommodate them permanently.

The deputy mayor said another porta cabin was being erected at Phase 4 kgotla to accommodate officers that serviced the Marulamantsi area. 

 

He further highlighted that two more porta cabins had been budgeted for in the 2021/22 recurrent budget to cater for more office space for social workers to be stationed closer to beneficiaries in other wards. ENDS