FCC adopts proposed budget for 2015

Patricia Edwin | Tuesday June 17, 2014 06:59

Finance and Development committee chairman, Raoboy Mpuang told the meeting that the proposed budget of P218,118,570 was aimed at addressing most problems of Francistown residents. He said that the council’s income is expected to be P41,669,420 mainly from rates, SHHA service levy, interest on deposits and trade licenses. 

“The budget is mainly for salaries, subsistence allowances, valuation of plots and compensation,” explained Mpuang. He said that their fear is that the budget will be cut again by the parent ministry. 

“In the budget of 2014-2015, we had asked for P208 million and we were only given P181 million and this time around, we have asked for this amount and we fear that it will also be cut,” he said.  In the proposed budget civil and mechanical department has been allocated P57,442,930. The legal services department gets the lowest cash at P3,524,510. Council management and education will get P32,637,660 and P27,273,800 respectively. 

Despite fears by Mpuang about a reduction, former mayor, Ephraim Maiketso said that they should just adopt the proposed budget and see what the parent ministry will do. 

“If the money is not enough or will be cut, there is a supplementary budget where we can try to fit some things but there is no point in trying to argue,” he said.  Meanwhile, councillors resolved to go back to committees they abandoned last year. There have been fears that certain councillors sit in too many committees while others did not have enough committee responsibilities. The councillors have resolved that each of them should be in at least two committees. 

Deputy city clerk, Joyce Ndove proposed that the councillors should go back to the system they used before. But some opposition councillors still complained that the system was not fair. 

Maiketso said that other councillors are rarely in the council because they do not have committee responsibilities while other were always in the council because they were sitting in too many committees. 

“It is like they work in the council now. It is like child’s play. People change the system and when it is not working, they go back to the old system so as to do themselves a favour,” he said. 

Councillor Professor Tlou urged his colleagues to refrain from fighting to sit in committees just because they want allowances. He told them to focus on representing the people.