19 Sep 2022

Southern District Council (SDC) chairperson, Mr Thamiso Chabalala has noted with concern that construction of destitute houses is unprofitable for local artisans.

“The houses have for quite some time been implemented at the cost of P100 000, inclusive of labour cost and materials despite the yearly hikes in the cost of utilities and materials,” Mr Chabalala said in his opening remarks at the full council session recently.

He shared that the allocation was standard across the district and not sensitive to the location and geographical features of various sites.

“To try and cushion the artisans from making losses, the district council has been trying to absorb certain costs, but that has proven to be unsustainable,” he said.

The council, he stated, was therefore intending to submit a recommendation to the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development to consider an upward adjustment of the housing units by 20 per cent to make them P120 000 per unit.

Deliberating on the 2023/24 budget, he said recurrent and development budget proposals had already been submitted.

Mr Chabalala shared that they had submitted a tentative recurrent proposal in excess of P413 million, which would enable the council to continue the most needed services to the people.

“On the development budget sphere we proposed an amount of P395 639 650 being funds for implementing various programmes including social welfare and community development programmes,” he said.

Mr Chabalala explained that the programmes were meant to cater for improved governance and service delivery as well as infrastructure development together with development planning and economic development.

“This budget is over and above the current allocations that we have, being the sum of P98.2 million for ongoing projects”.

He expressed the need to support revenue maximisation and for credit control committees to effectively implement their initiatives.

Mr Chabalala admitted that although there had been notable effort in bolstering revenue generation, todate nothing had surfaced to substantiate those efforts, adding that there was, therefore, need to do more on that aspect.

On that note, he appealed to the councillors to fast-track commencement of all the projects that were in the pipeline for implementation under the Public Private Partnerships (PPP) arrangement.

“Those projects are long overdue and remember that they are not only for revenue generation, but are also meant to help us leverage on the private sector capacities and efficiencies for provision of improved services,” he said.

Mr Chabalala further urged councillors to prudently limit the cost of project implementation and associated running costs to a constant level.

“This is by way of optimal employment of resources, utilisation of local artisans and locally available materials, proper management of contracts, avoidance of variations and cost overruns as well as ensuring that projects are delivered on time,” he said.

He noted that the council had put in place a well-resourced technical team to expedite projects delivery, adding that they had also impressed upon the local government ministry to timeously disburse annual provisions for projects.

“The belief is that we should be having minimal implementation bottlenecks going forward,” he said.On the same note, he shared that the parent ministry was generally pleased with the district’s performance.

“Much appreciation was given to our continued effort to improve our financial prudence and project management practices,” he said.

For that reason, Mr Chabalala extended the gratitude to the councillors for unyielding oversight and microscopic examination of productivity ever since they resumed duty.

On Social welfare issues, he stated that his wish was that the synergies between social welfare programmes and economic empowerment programmes could be created and functionalised.

“This is because the ever increasing numbers of persons in need of care and lack of graduation is by far stretching the district’s recurrent provision,” he said.

He advised all to ensure that the inter-relation between these two ends was well defined and facilitative, adding that the transition of the able-bodied individuals from social welfare grants could spare some considerable amount of money to spend on other productive means.

Mr Chabalala expressed concern over indiscriminate disposal of waste in the district.

He observed that residents often dumped waste in undesignated areas such as road lay-bye waste bins, waste cages in situations where communal facilities were used, and filled black refuse bags from street litter picked waste, which then became a nuisance and posed a risk of pollution.

“I really do appreciate the Beke le Beke waste collection initiative, where we engage in public education and literally go in to the streets to pick litter,” he said.

He cautioned that without commitment from the public and councillors, the initiative would not bear any fruit.

Mr Chabalala commended Ngwaketse Land Board’s performance on allocation of land since the commencement of the target 100 000 plots campaign.

“I want to plead with you to maintain such performance level beyond this campaign. We need to continue servicing our people effectively,” he said. ENDS