Francistown City Council owed P76 million
Lebogang Mosikare | Wednesday January 20, 2021 13:46
The Mayor of Francistown, Godisang Radisigo revealed this during a special full council meeting at the council chambers last Friday.
Radisigo said that the council could be getting P1, 25 million every month in service arrears but was getting far less than that due to oustanding debts.
He implored councillors to intensify efforts to collect service levy from their constituents and teach them the importance of why it is vital that people pay their levies.
“It is our duty as civic leaders to educate our people why they should pay service levy. If people don’t pay service levy it will be difficult for the municipality to bring services to them,” said Radisigo.
Radisigo added that the councillors should be on the forefront of sensitising their constituents about the need to pay their arrears.
Meanwhile, the chairperson of the finance committee councillor Lesego Kwambala of Itekeng ward said the council was making progress in collecting arrears from the people.
Kwambala called upon councillors to sensitise their constituents on the importance of paying their arrears.
“We should come up with new strategies of collecting service levy from our people. We never lose hope of collecting but keep on educating our people on the importance of paying their service levy,” said Kwambala.
Kwambala added that the council should not come up with new sources of generating income in order to better the people of Francistown.
Councillor Gaone Majere said that the council should walk the talk in collecting arrears from the people and come up with robust ways of collecting arrears. Councillor Sennye Matsoo echoed Majere’s sentiments.
She said that the council should set up offices in wards so that people can easily pay their arrears in their localities.
Councillor Modiri Lucas called for the council to enter into Public Private Partnerships (PPP) in order to generate more funds.
He said the PPP model the world over was bearing fruits for governments hence it was vital for the municipality of Francistown to also adopt the strategy.