GCC needs P1.1 billion to fix roads
Tsaone Basimanebotlhe | Tuesday June 23, 2015 15:44
Addressing a full council meeting yesterday, GCC mayor Kagiso Thutlwe said they have an approved budget of P321,106,430 for 2015/16 and to date they had spent 54,859,482 of it.
He said they anticipate that by the end of June 2015 the council would have spent 25% of the budget.
“This infrastructure is in a very bad state, with a few streetlights working, a lot of potholes and most roads needing a total reconstruction, as they have long passed their design life.
We need at least a total of P1.1 billion to be able to bring all these to a standard befitting a diamond city, I still reiterate the statements made by my predecessor and lobby for more funds to make improvements for a better city and enhance trading which we all yearn for as a country, “ he said. He said some of the roads cannot be patched or maintained anymore, rather they need to be reconstructed since their period had elapsed.
On issues of rates arrears, the council managed to collect approximately P14. 4 million since the beginning of the 2015-2016 financial year.
Although the mayor did not say the exact amount council is owed, for the year 2014/2015, it managed to collect P82.7 million leaving a balance of approximately P122million.
He said they had engaged two commercial banks - First National Bank that collected approximately P3.4million and Barclays Bank, which managed to collect P218,000 during the current financial year.
The mayor added that the council had billed over 49,000 plots collecting approximately P100million.
He asked councillors to encourage their electorates to pay rates so that council can deliver services to them. Thutlwe, however, noted that there were still challenges on land allocation since only 1,078 plots were given to council in October 2012.
“Currently, the waiting list stands at around 21,000. Applicants are regularly checking on their application status and there is no progress because there are no plots ready for allocation,” he said.
The mayor further said they are in the process of outsourcing their public toilets. “In that way I can safely say that some of our public toilets will soon be in private hands. Currently the council operates 15 blocks of toilet facilities situated in different areas across the city. Most of these facilities are in a poor state of repair mainly because of rampant vandalism and theft of fittings,” he said.