20 Oct 2022

Leaders in political and administrative wings need to deliberate on progress and challenges regarding service delivery.

Addressing a stakeholder consultative meeting in Serowe on Tuesday, Serowe Sub-district Council chairperson, Mr Lesedi Phuthego, said leaders should come up with practical solutions that would ensure progress in the uplifting of livelihoods.

He said Serowe Sub-district Council recurrent budget had been reduced, thereby affecting services such as waste management, social services, security of public properties and project implementation.

“Over the years, the sub-district has not been able to procure fleet, especially service and project monitoring vehicles. This has greatly affected our capacity to deliver projects timely,’’ he said.

He requested that be allowed to procure project monitoring vehicle through Constituency Community Programme (CCP) this financial year.

“Our health facilities have been experiencing dire shortage of drugs and issue has been dragging for too long. Currently, the sub-district have only managed to cover 67.8 per cent of all the under-fives immunisation antigens with vaccines like Pentavalent, Rotarix, Pneumococcal and Oral Polio vaccine out of stock,’’ Mr Phuthego said. He said some of challenges included inadequate stock from Central Medical Stores (CMS) and inefficient supply from private suppliers.

Mr Phuthego said patients ended up buying medication from private pharmacies and those without the buying power ended up going without drugs.

“I therefore urge MPs to help us in advocating for solutions to achieve sustainable health for all,’’ he said. He said a Local Economic Development Programme was recently launched in the sub-district, but the main challenge was rolling it out due to lack of financial resources.

The chairperson said the programme when fully implemented would improve community livelihoods and would go a long way in achieving President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi’s Reset Agenda especially on mind-set change.

He said District Dvelopment Plan Eight was coming to an end and Serowe Sub-district did not get much of developments hence the request to MPs of Serowe constituencies to help advocate for the implementation of the proposed projects. ends