Council services at Goodhope improve—Motsaathebe
Tsaone Basimanebotlhe | Tuesday April 25, 2023 06:00
In an interview with The Monitor, he said this has helped to allow them to make decisions here at Goodhope without having to travel to Kanye where all their decisions were ratified by the Southern District Council (SDC).
Goodhope used to be under SDC as a sub-council. “It has saved resources in that there is no longer travel to Kanye, which was a cost to the local authority, Goodhope Sub District, as we were! Being a planning area, in terms of the Country and Planning Act, all plans for buildings are by law, to be approved by the council.
We used to send them to Kanye for decision-making by the Southern District Physical Planning Committee. We have now our own Physical Planning Committee which considers and makes decisions on plans within a short period thus facilitating development in the district,” Motsaathebe said.
He, however, said his council has limited resources as a result of the diversion of funds to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, like most councils. Still on the issue of challenges, he said they do not have a shopping centre and are currently in the process of facilitating the development of one to provide for the community in the district as their people have to travel to Lobatse to access shops for most items.
In addition, he said they have a shortage of accommodation for staff as they have now been upgraded to a full district where there are more employees as per the full district standards. He continued: “We currently do not have a commercial bank and our people have to travel to Lobatse to access banking services. We are in negotiations with commercial banks to consider setting up in the district to service our population of 59,130 as per the 2022 National Population Census. Council has a shortage of vehicles and plant machinery to provide services to the community.
We expect to procure machinery to service new plots. This is so because Land Boards allocate plots in new unserviced areas. We will procure some machinery this financial year,' he added.