30 Aug 2022

A Jwaneng Town Council (JTC) meeting ended prematurely yesterday after councillors resolved to adjourn following what they termed failure to implement previous resolutions.

The council session, which was scheduled for two days, was adjourned after Mr Edward Molefhi moved an urgent motion to suspend proceedings with a request to the Minister of Local Government and Rural Development to come and address the council on what they deemed as poor service delivery.

Councillors took the decision after raising concerns that many resolutions that they made since they were elected into council in 2019 and even before were still pending with often unsatisfactory responses from relevant officers.

The final straw was failure by the council to allocate hawkers’ stalls that had been sitting idle since completion in 2019.

Councillors complained numerous times in past council sittings that failure to allocate the stalls was denying many residents chance to make a living and might lead to the stalls wearing down before use.

Other long pending resolutions cited were rehabilitation of internal roads and maintenance of streetlights as well as the relocation of the infamous Samaphaletshe location.

Councillors indicated that such slow implementation led to slow development of the town and also put them in bad light as the community looked at them as failures.

In her opening speech, the mayor, Ms Olga Ditsie, raised concern that a number of projects that were previously promised had not been implemented, something she conceded was a worrisome development.

She said the situation was more worrying due to the fact that some infrastructure such as roads were in a bad state.

She also indicated that provisions within the town council’s recurrent budget had unfortunately not been adequate to address the situation. 

Ms Ditsie also said a challenge in filling up potholes was worsened by the fact that the supplier that the council engaged failed to deliver the correct material.

She, however, promised that the works of filling up potholes would commence in two weeks’ time, of which the councillors were skeptic as they indicated that the promise had been unfulfilled many times before.

Councillor Tshepo Mothule of Seole suggested that before every speech, council management should account for the promises made in the previous one, saying it was also sad that the situation of effluent spillage was back to haunt residents.

This was, however, despite the mayor assuring that water supply rehabilitation exercise had been completed with all targeted wastewater pump stations attended to. 

She said the spillage was mostly due to improper disposal of waste by members of the community.

Ms Ditsie’s efforts to have councillors rescind their decision for adjournment to give relevant officers a chance to respond was however, shot down as councillors indicated that it would be against council’s standing orders to rescind a motion that had already been seconded to. ENDS