This was revealed at the BDP South East regional congress held at Matlala Community Junior Secondary School in Tlokweng on Sunday. The region feels that the current P10 million is not enough to address the challenges of youth unemployment amongst other issues.
“Currently councils do not have enough money for infrastructure development. The P5 million will help a lot in terms of infrastructure development and youth employment in the area.
The central government is allocating councils funds for salaries and it wants councils to make their own money while they know that our councils are not autonomous,” South East deputy chairperson, Seilatsatsi Kgokong said in an interview this week. “Council policies are not open for business purposes hence they depend on the central government for funding.
Unless councils become autonomous that is when they will be able to make their own money. The cost of living is high and with the little that councils have, they cannot afford to service the community well hence some members calling for an increase of the fund.” Still, at the congress, the members called for senior schools and hospitals or primary hospitals to be built across all districts.
Kgokong said the members’ concern is that Batswana travel long distances to get medical assistance which is very risky. Kgokong further revealed that students also travel long distances to senior schools and some parents cannot afford to pay for their children’s transport fees. She said some students’ lives are in danger because they travel more than five or 10 kilometres to the nearest senior secondary school. According to the South East deputy chairperson, another motion passed by the regional congress was for the government to pay mission school employees directly rather than giving the mission schools funds to pay the employees. “There is a need for mission school employees to be paid directly. Mission schools are not paying people on time and at times some employees go for months without being paid,” she said.
The other motion that passed called for an assessment of voters’ roll which they want to be done at cell level every two years. She said the members’ contention is that the BDP membership cards expire every two years, therefore, there is a need for the cell to check membership expiration on time. Kgokong said the members want party books for registration to align with membership so that disputes are avoided during primary election preparation. She said assessment of voters rolls every two years, at lower structures will help to reduce disputes that are normally caused by primary elections known as Bulela-Ditswe. Kgokong pointed out that the members believe that membership capturing takes time and a year’s assessment will help even to correct some mistakes on the voters’ roll.
Still on the resolutions, the members want nominated councillors and Members of Parliament (MPs) to be accountable to the party and their communities. “The concern of the members is that some party special nominated councillors and MPs are not helping on anything when there is an event. They should be able to assist during party activities and work well with MPs and councillors for areas that they do come from,” she said. Meanwhile, recently, the newly elected chairperson, Collen Mochotlhi said he is worried about their low share of the budget.
He said their budget is close to P60 million and they already have a deficit of P4 million. “You will agree with me that when we look at our implementation level status, against our budget provision, this target is likely to remain elusive. This is not a good start for a council. We have asked for funds increase from the ministry so that we are able to run our council effectively.
We are now a full council, not a sub-council like before. There are ongoing projects that need to be completed,” he said. He also reminded councillors that the government has previously directed local authorities to strengthen income generation and leverage the public-private partnership (PPP) and address Revenue Support Grant inefficiencies. He had said the PPP route could help the council to achieve some of its mandates and also developments in the area.
