Cllrs cry foul over measly budget

Patricia Edwin
Staff Writer | Sunday May 12, 2013 00:00

The civic leaders say the money allocated to the council is too little and will only cover the recurrent budget. The councillors were reacting to a budget breakdown given by the chairman of the finance committee, Raoboy Mpuang at a special council meeting.

Councillor Professor Tlou lamented that the Francistown council budget only increased by about P1 million to P123,508,720 which is far less than the required P208 million. He said that the maintenance of roads that are in a terrible state was allocated very little money. “P10 million is too little for the roads as we know the state that our roads are in.

The P10 million that we were allocated for the roads last year has long finished, which means that this amount is just not enough,” said Tlou. He suggested that the budget should be rejected.

Another councillor, Honest Buti Billy, a former mayor said the budget is a services budget and cannot be used to develop the city or improve the livelihood of residents.

“It is a services budget that maintains what we already have,” he said.

Billy added that the council spent too much money on security, celebrations and replacing equipment instead of maintenance. “We have too many security officers and some of them we do not need. Is it necessary that some recreational parks be guarded 24 hours? Security has been allocated P7 million and the figure is too high. We are spending too much on security. This town will never develop,” he said.

Finance committee chairman Mpuang said that the increase from the previous budget was  minimal but on the other hand salaries have increased by three percent.

“The total budget for 2013-2014 is P163,620,930 million which constitutes 0.03 reduction of the current year’s budget,” he said.

He said council revenue is about P40 million which is 25 percent of the total budget and the grant from central government constitutes 75 percent of the total budget. “This as you can see shows that local authority is relying on a government grant to run its errands. We are far from being autonomous,” said Mpuang.

He stated that council salaries take up 55 percent, leaving operations with 45 percent. Due to the ceiling in expenditure, council has not made any provision for replacement of vehicles.

“This situation calls for council to intensify collection especially rates which constitute the highest revenue source for this council,” he appealed.