16 Feb 2014

Jwaneng Town Council has approved P 78 670 830 as budget for the 2014/15 financial year.

The council’s finance committee chairperson, Mr Ben Bakwena said the approved budget was made up of own source revenue of P16 million while the P62.5 million is the revenue support grant.  

Deliberating on the budget, Councillor Bankinyana Montsiemang said it was ideal for the council to make the budget before the national speech budget by the Minister of Finance and Development Planning, to avoid complications.  

The councillor also expressed worry about the P62.5 million allocated to them arguing that the amount was not enough as the town needed to maintain roads, buildings and council vehicles.

Cllr Montsiemang was also worried about the three percent increment for the council workers, arguing that the increment, which he said was notch based, did not address challenges, among them; inflation, that workers were faced with.

He also said it was necessary for the increment to be made in order to motivate workers for better service delivery, adding the notch based increment had remained at three percent in the past six years.

Cllr Ntshadi Raditanka said unions should advocate more on the salary increment for the civil servants in order to lessen challenges that government employees were faced with.

She also advised the council to use the little money allocated to them wisely on vital projects aimed for the development of the town. Again, she said, if need be, money budgeted for other projects maybe be diverted to vital ones so as to address the problem, as has been the case in the current financial year.

Deputy Mayor Tsietsi Oodira-Kwenje urged councillors to encourage the public to use council facilities so as the P16 million that the council has to source for itself could be attainable.To that effect, he said leasing council facilities like halls, slaughter room and stalls would also help in raising revenue for the council. Ends