26 Feb 2013

The last session of Francistown City Council for the current financial year started with drama when Itekeng Ward councillor, Mr Professor Tlou said the mayor, Mr James Kgalajwe could not deliver a mayoral speech.

Mr Tlou said with the recent turn of events, the election of Mr Kgalajwe to the mayoral position contrived the Township Act and he therefore he did not qualify to read the mayoral speech.

Through a point of order, Cllr Ignatius Moswaane of Monarch South said Mr Tlou was presenting a motion unprocedurally, thus the matter should be put to rest. Consequently, Mr Tlou's motion was defeated.

When delivering his speech, Mayor Kgalajwe informed councillors that the Ipelegeng programme in the city had performed well, despite the council’s failure to meet most of its targets.

Mr Kgalajwe said out of the 30 maintenance projects that were planned for, 24 had been completed and out of the remaining six which were on-going, only one had not started.

The mayor informed the council that an additional P940 000 to cover costs of labour and feeding for the month of December 2012 to March this year had been allocated. “This translated into our monthly quota being increased by 207 beneficiaries,” said the Mayor.

He said a total of 17 766 beneficiaries were identified, with 14 406 being women and 3 360 men, while 6 870 youth benefited and 56 suppliers were engaged to supply drink and bread to Ipelegeng beneficiaries.

The mayor said for the coming financial year, the programme would continue to focus on maintenance of public facilities but would also include minor construction works. 

On the poverty eradication programme, the mayor said council was currently procuring materials and equipment, whose non-availability had delayed project implementation.

“Council has critically adopted a re-engineered system of purchasing materials, goods and other aids to reduce the time taken to procure those,” he said. He explained that out of 16 projects, 14 were provided with necessary equipment and materials and the remaining two were already operational.

Cllr Kgalajwe urged government and private institutions to give support to the poverty eradication initiative. He said the programme was faced with challenges such as long waiting lists at training institutions identified for skills training, lack of operational space for some projects and increase in process after collection of quotations. ENDS