26 Feb 2014

Mabutsane Sub-district council chairperson, Mr Burunyane Rantalajwe has decried the slow process of acquiring mining licenses for gravel material, which he said caused delay in gravelling internal roads.

Addressing the sub-council meeting, he noted that this impacted negatively on the schedule for the gravelling crew.

“This is not only Mabutsane Sub-district but rather a district problem which has resulted in some sub-districts failing to utilise the gravelling crew as per their planned schedules,” he explained.

Mr Rantalajwe, however, noted that they were expecting the gravelling personnel between January and March this year and work was expected to resume this quarter.

He noted that even though in some villages, the process of acquiring mining licenses for gravel was still at an infancy stage, they were hopeful that works at Thankane would commence this quarter after a volunteer provided gravel material.

“Fortunately, a gentleman from one farm near Thankane village by the name of Mr Onkelame Tlhokwane has volunteered to supply Thankane internal roads gravelling with gravel material from his farm. The department has since started the preparation to start works at Thankane during this quarter,” he said.

Furthermore, Mr Rantalajwe appealed to his councilors to assist the sub-council in identifying privately owned burrow pits which were readily available.

He urged them to help find pits which had good quality gravel as well as relevant documents so that the council could buy material from such.

On other issues, the sub-council chairperson informed the meeting that the bush clearing activities at Sese and Khakhea villages which had earlier been suspended due to pending payments for previous employees were back on track. 

“The employees have been engaged for 30 days from the 10/02/2014 to 21/03/2014 and are expected to have covered a distance of 2km in both villages by the end of their contracts,” he explained.

He also noted that the sub-council was intending to outsource refuse collection services to private companies for Mabutsane village in the next financial year.

This, he noted, would promote local empowerment and improve the economy of the sub-district.

Consequently, he urged all stakeholders to come together and map a way forward on how this exercise would be undertaken, as well as to strategise on how the cost for the services would be recovered. Even though he acknowledged improved service delivery since the outsourcing of refuse collection to small and medium scale

contractors in nine villages in the sub-district, he noted that more still needed to be done to cover the whole sub-district. He said the intention was to roll over the exercise to the remaining villages, funds permitting. ENDS