02 Jun 2022

Good Hope Sub-district council procurement team has been commended for boosting small-medium enterprises in the locality by procuring their services.

In his speech during the sub-council meeting in Good Hope on Monday, the council chairperson Mr Boniface Leshomo highlighted that in the past financial year of 2021/22 the council spent over P18 million on procurement from local business.

He said ‘out of that amount just a little over a million was spent outside the sub-district on services which were not available locally like information technology devices and others.’

Mr Leshomo said as such it was fitting to commend the procurement team as they were encouraging local empowerment.

However he said that it was the opposite when it comes to central government procurement.

“It is unfortunate that procurement activities for some departments are still centralised at Gaborone and do not adhere to local empowerment,” he said.

He said for the period from January 2022 to the end of March, the total amount spent on goods and services in the sub-district stood at over P1.5 million while the amount spent outside the district was almost P2 million.

Furthermore, he said that payments for different ISPAAD components were ongoing and so far farmers in the district have been paid over P9 million while Ngwaketse south office has expended at least P8 million.

He pointed out that the slow progress was attributed to insufficient funds and that the office was since awaiting disbursement of additional funds.

Mr Leshomo also urged locals to utilise other government programmes such as SHHA Turnkey and LIMID amongst others.

The sub-council meeting which started on the May 30  will end on June 8. Ends