27 Sep 2023

Kgatleng District Council has exceeded its expenditure by over P7 million due to insufficient budget allocation.

This was revealed by the council chairperson, Mr Daniel Molokwe at the beginning of the council’s session in Mochudi on Monday.

Mr Molokwe said their total expenditure at the end of August was P77 million against a target of P70 million and would therefore conduct a budget review to identify funds from unspent votes.

“This exercise involves forgoing some of the budgeted items to cater for the overspent votes and identifying funds for critical activities which cannot be halted,” he said.

He said a total revenue collected by August was P2 414 338.55 against a target of P3 910 657.

“Therefore cost saving and control measures should be implemented in order to avoid a deficit at the end of the current financial year,” he said adding there was also a need to strengthen their collection strategies in order to raise enough income.

He further briefed councillors about the water situation in the district, saying there was a P132 million project to supply water to Artesia and Leshibitse through the North South Carrier (NSC 2.2) project.

He said design works had been completed and construction had begun and was expected to be completed in July next year.

Mr Molokwe said the four wards including Tsope, Bolelatshwene, Mosupabatho and Diponchi in Mochudi would receive adequate water supply through a dedicated project budgeted at P3.1 million.

He further said under the twelfth National Development Plan (NDP 12), river villages would be connected to the Mmamashia water supply scheme as an alternative to supply from Madikwe dam, adding a total of P11.2 million has been allocated for rehabilitation of wastewater ponds.

“Operationally, vandalism of wastewater pump stations is so rampant that it endangers the environment through pollution from resultant spillages,” he said adding costly enhancements in security measures would be undertaken in the next financial year.

On other issues, he said the district owed Water Utilities Corporation (WUC) over P43 million, of which 80 per cent was domestic debt.

He encouraged residents to pay their bills to enable the corporation to develop and expand its water networks.

“It must be appreciated that this is the money that the corporation uses to undertake improvements on our services and as such councillors were implored to motivate water users to timely pay their bills,” he said.

He said WUC had opened a customer service office in Oodi and similar arrangements would be done for Artesia and Sikwane in the next financial year.

The district had also been allocated P4 million under the 2023/24 Road Fund Levy and consultations for selection of projects was ongoing.

Councillors also heard that there were other projects earmarked for the district and the project memorandum for the design and construction of 25-kilometre internal roads and associated stormwater drainage in Mmathubudukwane had been approved and the project had been handed to the development manager for implementation.

Meanwhile, Mr Molokwe said the number of Ipelegeng workers in the district would be increased by 280 after the 2022/23 was declared a severe drought year.

“This increment will reduce waiting periods for those registering to be engaged in the Ipelegeng programme. 

This quota is going to be spread across the district but with a special bias towards villages which were hit the worst by drought while having limited employment opportunities,” he said. Ends