21 Mar 2024

Lobatse Town Council Mayor, Mr Jomo Dithebe says he is concerned about the rampant stealing of copper cables in the town.

When briefing the full council session on Tuesday, the mayor said the rampant stealing of copper cables led to darkness in the town, which resulted in high crime rate.

He decried that as a consequence, the town ended up not being able to attract investors.

He stated that the council currently experienced low expenditure due to the recently introduced reforms in procurement process, adding that the process resulted in some tenders being taken back for re-tendering.

Mr Dithebe pointed out that out of a budget of P34 million allocated to the town through Transitional Development Plan, only P13.3m was used for implementation of development projects and programmes for the financial year 2023/24.

He revealed that the low expenditure was attributed to among other factors the delay in disbursement of funds from the ministry, saying follow-ups were being made to address the situation.

He disclosed that revenue collection remained a challenge because the town had only managed to collect a little over P9 million against a target of P18 6 million.

“This translates to 49 per cent collection rate and as a council we need to close gaps by coming with stringent measures to address the issue,” he said.

He explained that Lobatse experienced unplanned water outages during the past three months.

He said that this was mainly due to power disruptions from Dikgatlhong pump station to Nnywane.

Mr Dithebe said this had necessitated the rationing of water supply with places like Woodhall and Peleng experiencing increased supply shortfalls. ENDS