P4m set aside to illuminate dark Gaborone
Mompati Tlhankane | Monday June 27, 2022 06:00
GCC this week vowed to illuminate Botswana’s capital city for P4 million directed towards the maintenance of streetlights this financial year under the recurrent budget.
The council’s recurrent budget for this financial year is P387 million, which is less than the last financial year’s budget, which stood at P392.8 million. Driving at night in Gaborone has been literally a nightmare and even a jogger cannot take an evening run. Streetlights are not functioning and it is risky for commuters whether on foot or in a vehicle.
With these broken street lights, many roads go completely dark after sunset and it makes people feel much more vulnerable as they go about their lives. It was even worse during rainy days as people drove through the dark along the pothole riddled roads. What makes the matter worse is that even the busy streets of Gaborone have plunged into darkness.
Some residents felt there is no sense of urgency on the GCC’s part to address the problem, as a large number of lights along the city’s streets have not worked for a long time.
This is a citywide problem, and the most affected areas include main roads and busy intersections in Gaborone. “The provision and maintenance of street lighting in all areas of Gaborone will be of utmost priority for the council.
The safety and security of the communities of Gaborone will not be compromised. Due to an inadequate budget, the following are key priorities for implementation in 2022/2023 financial year: Maintenance of facilities; Completion of ongoing maintenance projects (including retention) payments; Street lighting,” new City Mayor Austin Abraham revealed on Monday. Criminals have been taking advantage of the veil of darkness in some Gaborone areas where most of the streetlights have not worked for months. Some residents have expressed concern over criminals who attack people at night and thieves who steal valuables.
According to the police, some specific places in the city have become hot spots for criminals and members of the public were advised to exercise caution. Even though the police have not directly blamed the high rate of crime on dysfunctional streetlights, this is still a big issue for people because faulty streetlights obviously present safety issues, especially in these crime hot spots. What made matters worse is that in some of these places, both the traffic and streetlights were not working.
In some of the worst affected areas people felt their areas were neglected by the GCC, as they allegedly failed to attend to service delivery and infrastructure failures that were reported. Fresh in office, Abraham has indicated that as the City Mayor, he has a vision which when achieved, will impact on the livelihoods of the people of Gaborone and promote optimum economic growth and prosperity within the city. “It is my hope to improve council efficiency in carrying out its functions as enshrined in the Schedule 1 of the Local Government Act of 2012, as well as other delegated functions and my priorities are: City illumination; Maintenance of infrastructure (roads); waste management; vegetation control and informal sector,” he further said.
In its plan to provide service, he said council is faced with challenges like poor infrastructure management and vandalism of infrastructure. Abraham, however, admitted that the council has over time been faced with diminishing revenue base and this has proved to be compromising its ability to deliver goods and services. He said the cost of providing services has been constantly increasing over the years due to the effects of inflation, increasing cost of production and increased demand for goods and services as well as the effects of COVID-19.
Despite the problems with streetlights being known by GCC for quite some time, no solutions had been offered and it all seemed like they did not have maintenance plan for repairing or replacing streetlights. Until this week it has always been unclear as to what causes the delays in providing immediate attention to defective streetlights.