23 Aug 2022

Okavango  Sub-district Council has been allocated over P3 million for maintenance of four primary schools of Beetsha, Etsha 6, Gunotsoga and Tlhale in Gumare.

Delivering a key note address at the opening of the sub-council session on Monday, council chairperson, Mr Lesedi Boy said the project resulted from the termination of the previously engaged contractors, who failed to complete the works.

Mr Boy said the electrical department had set a target of maintaining 25 out of 35 facilities, this financial year, adding that 14 had already been maintained.

The chairperson however expressed concern about acts of vandalism, especially in some schools, which negated the department’s efforts to maintain facilities. 

He thus urged fellow councillors to condemn such acts as they thwarted efforts to provide basic infrastructure.

Mr Boy also said the council was currently implementing Community Constituency Projects (CCP) in nine villages in the district, which were reported to be mostly power connection to Village Development Committee (VDC) facilities, through either the national grid or solar power.

He also informed the house that the Nxaunxau solar power plant was experiencing electrical maintenance challenges, while the council was at an advanced stage of its maintenance preparatory works.

“Our off grid plants have been in service for more than five years in schools with minimum outages, save for the Nxauxau plant. 

These plants are now getting to a stage where we have to seriously budget for the replacement of their batteries, which we estimate to cost about P9 million,” said Mr Boy.

He also informed councillors that the district had been blessed with several developmental projects under the Backlog Eradication Programme, where there would be construction of education facilities comprising of classrooms, ablutions blocks and staff accommodation at Samochima, Kajaja, Etsha 1, Shamombo Kushonya, Etsha 13, Kathiana, Shakawe and Mohembo.

Mr Boy revealed that projects at Samochima, Kajaja, Kathiana, Shakawe and Mohembo had started and were at different construction stages, while those at Etsha 1, Shamombo, Koshonya and Etsha 13, were practically complete and under defects liability period.

He announced that maintenance of roads by the in-house crew was progressing well, despite several challenges, adding that dry grading of roads along Mohembo East/Gudigwa road was complete. 

He said the motor grader had commenced dry grading of Shakawe/Mohembo West internal roads.

On other issues, Mr Boy said that the Poverty Alleviation and Housing Programme had been progressing well in over a year, since the trial production in June 2021.

The programme aims to facilitate home ownership by citizens of low income households, both in urban and rural area, by assisting them to acquire productive skills as well as establish and manage their own income generating activities.

It engages able-bodied beneficiaries identified with the assistance of the department of Social & Community Development to venture into production of bricks. 

Mr Boy reported that the programme was currently operating with a total of 10 females and five males, with five categorised under the youth cohort.

 A total of 16 573 bricks had been sold at a total amount of P128 398 during the first quarter of this financial year, he said.

Lastly, Mr Boy urged heads of departments to develop comprehensive implementation plans with clear key performance indicators to guide service delivery. 

In addition, he said robust monitoring and supervision of such plans was needed so that projects and programmes were completed on time, within schedule and to specifications. BOPA