20 May 2025

The chairperson of the Tutume District Council, Mr Tabona Masole, has called for action to address the public concerns over alleged improprieties in tendering processes within local authorities. 

Speaking at a full council session, Mr Masole emphasised that such perceptions threatened the council’s goal of maintaining a seamless and reputable tendering system. 

“The allegations of misconduct in tendering processes are a matter of concern for both my office and the public,” Mr Masole said. 

He urged the council secretary to ensure that all procedures were executed in a transparent ethical manner. 

Furthermore, the chairperson said that transparency and integrity should not be overlooked in the tendering processes as this would earn them trust from those that they served. There should be strict standards for us to restore the necessary public confidence and bidders’ trust lest we fall victim to project implementation failures and litigations, Mr Masole said. 

Mr Masole also informed the meeting that the government was committed to social development and providing social safety nets to those in need however, the council was among those with a high number of people registered as destitute persons with less graduating from the destitution despite the target set by Ministry of Local Government and Traditional Affairs to reduce the numbers by five percent annually. 

By April 2025, he noted that the number of registered permanent destitute persons stood at 1 697 while that of temporary destitute persons was 175 and none graduating from welfare programmes, a situation that needed on board to realise the five per cent reduction was attained. 

In addition, Mr Masole shared that with its abundant natural resources, financial assistance from government as well as other development partners, the lives of people had not been positively impacted. 

He said it was important that they maximised resources at their disposal in order to achieve sustainable economic growth, challenging them to come up with a robust District’s Local Economic Development Strategy aimed at creating opportunities employment opportunities among other things. ENDS