06 Jun 2021

Vice President, Mr Slumber Tsogwane has urged councils to seriously look into the issue of generating own revenues than depending solely on government disbursement. 

Speaking at Sekoma, where he consulted with village leadership on development projects and government programmes in the village, he expressed a concern that the issue of revenue-generation was still vaguely mentioned when government expenditure was discussed. 

He, therefore, implored councils to look into options such as rate  collections and service levies among other avenues. 

“Revenue should not only mean the annual budget that you get from the central coffers. 

If councils could manage to generate their own additional revenue it would assist government in financing development projects. 

So financial prudence should be coupled with revenue generation,” he said. 

He said revenue generation was also necessary at this moment when reliable sources of revenue such as  diamond sales, tourism and the beef industry were struggling. 

Mr Tsogwane shared the advise after shortage of funds was cited as one of the challenges for failure to complete or implement some projects and programmes in the Mabutsane Sub-district, an issue that he said kept surfacing in areas he visited across the country. 

Briefing the VP on projects and programmes in the area, Mabutsane Sub-district’s economic planner, Mr Raphael Moatswi indicated that most of the projects in the area were frustrated by the fact that the area was isolated from major towns where they sort building supplies. 

He said as a sub-council they had attempted to assist, especially local contractors by paying for the supplies directly, but said there was still a delay in the delivery of materials, which then led to overall delay of project delivery. 

Mr Moatswi also indicated that facilities such as washing basins and geysers at schools were on continuous maintenance as pupils  destroyed them on a weekly basis, putting on a strain on the council’s coffers. 

He, however, said development projects under different government programmes such as destitute housing, constituency projects and general maintenance were going well.

He, however, raised a concern at the number of registered destitute persons that he said was growing in an area, which is already rated second most hard hit by poverty in the country. 

He said at the moment, there were 1 103 permanent destitute persons in the area. Mr Moatswi also said the area District Health Management Team was in need of additional staff to ease their fight of COVID-19, the fight he said was frustrated by rife public gatherings, especially at night. Ends