21 Jun 2022

Gaborone City Council (GCC) Mayor, Mr Austin Abraham has appealed to all authorities to protect households from traders who may want to take advantage of the inflation rate.

Opening GCC Full council meeting on Monday, he observed that there had been price increase for food and energy. He said the economy had not yet recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic, and that more challenges were emerging from different forces.

He mentioned that price and inflation had been on the rise all over, adding that such had been also happening with potatoes and onions in the past few months.

“Although there is correlation between prices and commodities, some increases are not acceptable,” he said. He therefore appealed to authorities concerned to ensure price monitoring.

Mr Abraham further said since consumers were also impacted by increasing energy prices such as petrol and diesel, there was need to think of alternative renewable energy sources and modes of transport such as the use of bicycles as done in other countries.

He said the city planned to have cyclist conducive road networks to encourage cycling. That, he said, would also help to improve health condition of the people. Meanwhile Mr Abraham appreciated the recent move to restrict the importation of certain vegetable commodities for a two-year period.

He therefore encouraged all households, to take advantage of the opportunity to start  vegetable and fruits production to reduce the impact due to high prices.

He further said the city council would restructure the use of open spaces to accommodate urban agriculture and use of technologies like hydroponic, aquaponic and vertical production.

Furthermore he implored small scale farmers around the city to tap into different value chains of agricultural production particularly food processing. ENDs