Francistown Council Increases Rates
Lesedi Mkhutshwa | Tuesday November 2, 2021 06:00
Kwambala, who is also the Itekeng ward councillor, briefed the media saying the council took a decision to revise the tariffs every two years. Some of the rates remain unchanged. Kwambala said there was an adopted approach in reviewing the new tariffs such as benchmarking at local and regional authoritative and a transparent tariff toolkit from South Africa and Namibia. Kwambala indicated that the tariff calculations applied per service was determined by the level of consumption, cost of service and strategic decisions. “We also followed certain principles when coming up with these tariffs. The tariff principles applied include revenue sufficiency, economic efficiency, equity and fairness.
Tariff setting must be fair and transparent to all citizens,” he said. He added that from the tariffs review, the committee recommended that the council should continue identifying other new sources of revenue to argue its income. Kwambala said the review also recommended the council reviews all the existing by-laws to incorporate the issue of new tariffs. The last review was in 2016. Street vendors’ certification is now at a cost of P150 up from P100.
Rates clearance certification will be charged at P100, representing a 100% increase while the replacement of cheques under finance services costs P60, up from P20.
He indicated that under environmental health, domestic waste disposal for households with title deeds is P20 whereas old SHAA areas will pay P15. The cost of burials has also gone up with families expected to part with P400 per adult burial, up from P120 while for children the cost is P200, an increase of P105. Foreigners will pay P600 for an adult, up from P150, while for children the cost has gone up to P300 from P100.
The cost for reserving grave space will be P200. Kwambala said the use of open space for events will now cost P300 but the youth pay while the use of environmentally sensitive areas will be charged P4,000, a 400% increase. To use the Francistown Council Stadium, the First Division club will pay P1,500 while their Premier League counterparts will cough up P8,500. Kwambala said the daily rates for hosting music festivals will increase from P3,500 to P4,000 for locals while foreigners will part with P11,500. The penalty fee for non-compliance has been set at P8,500. He stated that they have introduced new tariffs for reversed spaces per parking (maximum of two) for commercial shops in CBD at P500.
He added that commercial and industrial areas loading bays would cost P500 and P800 respectively. Kwambala said a reserved loading bay for an association will cost P1,500 and a car wash bay will be P500. Driving school space will cost P450. He said the council has revised the tariffs so that they can continue improving services to the people.