FCC Councillors reject action sheet

Patricia Edwin
Staff Writer | Thursday August 23, 2012 00:00

 

FRANCISTOWN: Francistown City Council (FCC) councillors have rejected an action sheet document that was presented before them during a full council meeting yesterday. The action sheet document, which is motions and questions from previous sittings, was presented by the Acting Deputy City Clerk-technical and social services Thuto Obakeng.The councillors fumed that the council staff was taking them for granted and that there was a serious unspoken war between themselves as councillors, and council staff. The councillors lamented that the council staff gave shallow, last minute responses to their motions and questions. When rejecting the document, they complained that most of the responses were copy and paste from previous documents and that correspondence from the council to ministries and departments were done at the last minute. The document was therefore rejected and a task force to tackle the issue appointed.

Councillor Professor Tlou said the reason councillors were so irate was because the action sheet was very important to them as it involved issues that originate with their electorate.'These are the things that people send us to ask about and to suggest and when it seems its being taken lightly, of course we react with ire, especially if it is repeated over and over again,' he said. He said that councillors need to know that they are being taken seriously especially when it comes to matters that they raise concerning the people they represent. 'People in our wards do not care if someone in another department has not done their job. They look at us and accuse us of not doing our jobs,' he said. Councillor Ignatius Moswaane who repeatedly called council staff lazy, said accepting the document would mean that full council meetings were a waste of time and energy. 'These responses are shallow and irrelevant and they are put together by a lazy person who takes us for granted,' thundered Moswaane. In the debate, which saw emotions running high, Moswaane accused the staff of being lazy and of deliberately sabotaging councillors in their work.

'There is a serious tug-of-war amongst the councillors and the staff.  The decisions that we make here as councils get challenged out there and by whom I do not know. If we accept these responses the council will fail on its mandate,' he warned. He said that the answers are either wrong, irrelevant, shallow or contradictory to what was initially the response.Councillor Tabengwa Tabengwa echoed his sentiments, saying that in-fighting between the councillors and the staff needed to end.He further cautioned the mayor, saying that he was leading two factions that were against each other. Councillors complained that when decisions are taken in council, the council can go out and do the opposite. The councillors were unanimous that the document should therefore be rejected or differed.Even when the house was divided, a majority of them opted to object to the adoption of the action sheet.