05 Apr 2022

North West District councilors have been implored to exercise financial prudence at all times in order save funds. 

Delivering North West District Council (NWDC) 2022/23 budget speech in Maun on April 4, chairperson of Finance and Education Committee, councilor Petros Tjetjoo said councilors should observe punctuality during council proceedings and avoid sitting for extra days, which translated to further expenditure through payment of sitting allowances. 

He said it was imperative that councilors stick to the time allocated to them during debates so that council deliberations were not prolonged, resulting in extension of full council sessions. 

The chairperson said councilors as, leaders should lead by example and assist NWDC to cost save as best they could, by conforming to budget allocations. 

He highlighted that the COVID-19 pandemic had caused too much economic uncertainty and there was need to be resilient with economic policies and strategies that aligned to government reforms and recovery plan as well as the RESET agenda to reverse the adverse impacts caused by the pandemic. 

The chairperson said there was need for high yielding revenue streams in line with Government’s direction to undertake economic and institutional reforms that underpinned local authorities’ ability to generate revenue to faciliate Botswana’s journey to high-income status, as laid out in Vision 2036. 

Mr Tjetjoo stated that the 2022/23 recurrent budget amounted to P401 820 085 of which P383 754 905 was the Revenue Support Grant and P18 065 180 income from own sources.  

However, he highlighted that the original proposed budget estimates was P513 871 400 hence the final amount presented a decline of P112 051 315, which translated to 21 per cent reduction. 

Councilor Tjetjoo said revenue projections of P 18 065 180 was 17 percent above last year’s amount due to a projected growth of interest on investments, staff house rentals and sanitation fees. 

He stated that a larger portion of the total recurrent budget estimates would be directed towards remunerations of members’ and officers’ salaries, overtime allowance, employer’s pension contribution and members’ funeral benefits among others. 

The chairperson said the second largest share of the budget would cover special expenses to the tune of P124 258 417 to finance relief of destitute persons, security services, school stationery and equipment, food and accommodation and refuse contracts. 

Members unanimously adopted the budget and emphasised that there was need to strengthen the council’s income generating sources so that the council would not be overly reliant on government grant. ends