UDC Cllrs Dismiss Kruger
Tumelo Mouwane | Monday May 8, 2017 16:03
Malebogo Kruger was voted in for a second term in office unopposed after her two-and-half-year tenure ended last week. Her deputy mayor, Francis Mokwena was also sworn in for a second term in office.
Despite that the mayor noted developmental progress within the heritage rich town since taking office, UDC legislators told The Monitor that ‘there was nothing to show’ since she took office. One of the councillors, Mosimanekgotla Botanka, of Newlook Maipei ward, briefly said there is nothing to show as progress with the current leadership.
“What I like about the current leadership is that they work with us with the utmost respect as compared to the previous leadership and we appreciate that. But there is nothing to show to say that their first term in office has produced developmental results,” Botanka said.
Tsopeng North councillor, Gofaone Kedise, said constituents continually complain of basic service delivery like malfunctioning street lights and poor refuse collection something that he says denies the current leadership credit.
“In the mayor’s roadmap there are key points, which were in the forefront of her objectives. One of them was operation maboneng, in the programme she intended to fix all street lights in town, but as we speak the whole town is in the dark. People complain of street lighting.
Refuse collection is also a problem in this town, but those are basics of service delivery. If we say we see any developmental progress since the current leadership took office we will be lying to the public. Failure to progress in those basics denies the current leadership credit,” Kedise said.
Kruger said she is half-way to achieving her objectives, she said she notes progress in terms of developments since she took office. “When I took the mayor’s office in 2014 one of my core objectives was emphasising unity and team work, I also introduced the mayor’s roadmap.
As councillors we don’t have any work specifications or guidelines so the roadmap has everything that we need to give us direction. Our main aim is quality service delivery and the roadmap is the tool that guides us to achieving that. We have successfully achieved that.
“In the past two and half years we have successfully followed the roadmap and we have achieved all that we wanted to achieve in terms of service delivery. There are some practices that we invented as Lobatse Town Council, which are not even present in other councils.
We have rooted PASDCE from South Africa and Milk Afric is on its way, a mall will be built in Lobatse and a Leather Park is coming.
“We are in a good direction and we are in this office without fear or favour. It is our duty to run the council and sometimes we will take decisions that some constituents might not like but in our own opinion, we are developing the town,” she said.
Kruger added that constituents should know that ‘she has Lobatse at heart’, and when her term ends she will leave smiles on residents’ faces. Kruger admitted to some of the allegations opposing councillors alluded to, she said litter collection and street lights have been a problem, but they are trying their best.
“I live and breathe development of Lobatse. I want to look back at the end of the five years and see smiles on the faces of Lobatse residents.
“I addressed Kgotla meetings last week. Lobatse is in the dark that one I admit, but something is being done, BPC (Botswana Power Corporation) wants us to buy electricity directly so we had to make some alternation that is why you see the streets dark. We are, however, working around the clock to normalise the situation.
I admit that litter collection is a concern, even at my yard litter has for several days not been collected yet. That one I admit we have a challenge of a refuse collection truck, which is currently down. We are not saying we are 100%, but we are trying,” she said.