Francistown's self-reliance overdue
Patricia Edwin | Friday February 7, 2014 15:45
His comments follow the presentation of the national budget last Monday by the Minister of Finance and Development Planning, Kenneth Matambo. Ibrahim, a respected businessman who is also a past president of the business think tank, BOCCIM, said that the budget on a broad spectrum is promising and hailed Mathambo's presentation.
'Generally it looks promising and the minister did a good job of presenting it to the public,” he said.
Ibrahim said that in the case of Francistown the business sector and the public at large, through the local authorities, should come together and deliberate on the development of Francistown.
He acknowledged that the initiative of Francistown's Vision 2022 geared towards the development of Francistown is a step in the right direction.
'We should have a strategy tailor made for Francistown so that we can develop the city in a manner we want without waiting for the government to develop it for us,” said Ibrahim.
'We should think differently and look at other sectors that drive the economy. We need to service more land and encourage people to settle and invest in Francistown. I feel that we should be very proactive in thought, in vision and in implementation,” he added.
He further told Mmegi that what should happen first is that councillors should do away with petty politics and start thinking about what is important towards the development of Francistown.
Measnwhile, Francistown Mayor James Kgalajwe said Francistown has no new projects and that the only project set to begin is Gerald Junior Secondary School.
He said that the city council was given P20 million earlier for streetlights in Gerald Location and that they have also been allocated P3 million for design of CBD in Gerald Estates. Kgalajwe is however worried that the projects that are close to the hearts of the people of Francistown such as the Storm Water Drainage Master Plan and the district hospital have once again been left aside.
'We have issues of floods in this town but this project is still shelved even though we had requested that it be done in phases. I am yet to go back to the ministries to put up other proposal because the Storm Water Drainage Master Plan is a critical project for Francistown,” he said.
Kgalajwe shared the same sentiments with Ibrahim that Francistown should stand up for it own developments and not depend on the government.
'We can no longer base the developments of Francistown on the government budget which is why we have come up with Vision 2022 which is our roadmap to develop Francistown driven by the private sector,” he said.
He said that the idea has been received well by the government and the Ministry of Trade and Industry who will now partner with Francistown in the conference of Business Pitso to set the whole thing in motion.
He said that it is important to now look at what Francistown has to offer to investors who come here - the strengths and weaknesses and the opportunities and obstacles.
He said that Francistown has 12 mines surrounding it on 200-kilometre radius, four dams on the same radius and unexplored tourism opportunities.