Indiscriminate disposal of litter worries mayor
Lindiwe Mozola | Friday April 17, 2015 16:27
This was said by the mayor of Francistown Sylvia Muzila at the Central ward Kgotla meeting held at the Civic Centre.
Muzila said that the Vision 2022 is intended to attract investors into the city and that they can only achieve that with a clean environment.
She said that the situation is so bad that whenever she is greeted by someone, the first words they utter to her are, “why is your town so dirty?”
“This is very embarrassing. I never know what to say to those people but this is a wake up call to everyone here present that we take it upon ourselves to make our town clean,” she said.
She said that the second city is choking under pollution by residents who defecate and urinate everywhere they can find space, especially at the city centre and its alleys
Muzila also condemned residents who fail to clean the surrounding of their yards expecting Ipelegeng to clean for them.
“Ipelegeng beneficiaries are not your helpers and therefore every household need to clean in and outside their homes,” she said.
She noted that people who do not have dustbins also contribute to littering around the city because they do not have where they can dump their trash hence the only option they have is to litter everywhere.
Muzila said people are under the impression that it is the council’s responsibility to provide them with the dustbins, which is no longer the case, as everyone has to purchase their own rubbish bins.
She said members of the public should know that dumping litter indiscriminately is against the law, and whoever is found doing that will be fined an amount not less that P2,000.
She said the council’s attempts to address the issue of garbage disposal has seen them hiring four private companies to collect garbage around the city, with the number to be increased to seven this year.
Meanwhile, the mayor said she was concerned about members of the public who do not pay their service levy, especially those who took loans through the self help housing agency (SHHA) scheme.
She said this has put a strain on the development of the city, as a portion of the money used for development comes from that.
“Last time I visited Palapye, I was very embarrassed to see that the village’s developments are ahead of us yet we are the second city,” She explained.
The mayor said there was a need to address the public on the issue of payments being made to the FCC before taking the harsh decision that they were planning on do by issuing summonses against all those who owed the government.