Meagre 2016/17 budget riles FCC
Pini Bothoko | Wednesday January 6, 2016 13:30
The civic leaders raised the concerns after Finance and Development committee chair James Kgalajwe presented the draft budget last month.
When presenting the draft budget, Kgalajwe said it was estimated at P193.8 million, and that there were tight restrictions on the overall growth of the budget due to limited allocations. The figure is slight improvement from the P186.6 million in 2015/16 and P159.5 million of 2014/15.
Councillors estimate that a budget of at least P300 million is required for Francistown City Council (FCC) to address its concerns. According to a savingram from the FCC from November 2015, the city’s Revenue Support Grant ceiling was P148.3, just 2.3 percent more than the 2015/2016 allocation.
Kgalajwe told Mmegi that the development was a great challenge and concern to the city, which now had to ramp up efforts to source its own income and sustain itself.
He said for some time, Francistown had been struggling to come up with ways of raising its own sources of income.
For 2016/17, the city expects to generate P45.5 million of its own revenue mainly from rates, Self Help Housing Agency service levies, interest on deposits, staff housing rentals, lease rentals and trade licences.
Despite its situation, the FCC recently took a decision to lower rate charges in the city as a way of accommodating individual ratepayers.
“This reduction will have an impact on our overall own financial sources,” he said.
“The reduction in the rates will affect our income from rates which will drop from P26 to P20 million. “This means the council will have to look elsewhere within its own sources to augment the shortfall.”
In addition, the FCC has to reserve a portion of its budget for repayments of the Government of Botswana loans. For 2016/17, P2.6 million is reserved for government loan repayments, while another P700, 000 has been set aside as contingency for doubtful debts and P540, 850 for bank charges.
Councillors have resolved to ask the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development to clear all outstanding loans that date back to around 1966, as they believe these aged debts are unnecessarily affecting the council’s cash flow and the city’s development.
“This shows that every year our budget is always tight thus affecting the city’s development plans as we are failing to address major projects that could change the face of Francistown.”
He said the FCC is also failing to meet its target of debt collection and is planning to come up with other ways of addressing the matter because the methods they have been using are not effective.
“Through our Investment Forum we are planning to partner with private companies to build infrastructure and creation of employment to increase the council’s revenue,” said Kgalajwe.
“Council is also owed a lot of money, which once paid, could help in pushing the city’s developments.”