FCC excels in ministry review

PATRICIA MAGANU
Staff Writer | Thursday August 28, 2008 00:00

'On August 7, under the leadership of our chief executive officer, we appeared for a review before the Permanent Secretary and other ministry officials,' Billy told the third full council meeting.

The review was one of President Ian Khama's initiatives. 'When he (Khama) ascended to office, he unreservedly announced that he was going to give executive officers six months to prove their worth,' he said.

Buti told the ecstatic council members that the review was based on five broad areas namely customer service; financial management; internal processes; information management and communication; and learning and growth. The mayor said that though the council has excelled, there is still room for improvement. 'I would like to, however, call upon the honourable councillors and staff members to work hand in hand to improve on financialmanagement,' he stated.

Billy said the council has decided to have zero-tolerance of potholes. 'Let me take this time to mention that city of Francistown has been given an amount of P11,720,865 being a provision to cater for maintenance of roads that were damaged by the rain,' he said. He informed the council that projects have been awarded to maintain the roads.

'This is a commendable exercise, which I trust will be of great importance to our development,' he said. The other improvement that the council boasts is the introduction of a toll free number to improve service delivery.

He called on councillors to inform residents about the number. Though the city council has many things to celebrate it also faced with challenges. One of the things that gives the council sleepless nights at the moment is the shortage of infant formula for children under the PMTCT programme. Billy said that the shortage is a threat to the programme.
'The PMTCT programme which has been very effective in terms of reducing the number of children born with HIV suffered from shortage of the formula which is a replacement of breast milk,' he said.

'This a serious threat to the programme particularly to those mothers who cannot afford to buy formula or long life milk because they will be inclined to breastfeed to prevent their babies from dying of starvation,' he lamented.

The government gave the FCC P250,000 in July to source the formula locally, but still, there are problems because suppliers of the formula in Francistown do not have large stocks. The mayor  pointed out that another problem is the unavailability of drugs at Central Medical Stores (CMS), especially those for Hypertension and Diabetes. 'The council has been relying on sourcing from local suppliers who do not stock drugs but wait for orders which they purchase from manufacturers particularly in South Africa,' he added. He stated that it is against this background that they have been getting inadequate supplies and usually not in the ideal time frame.

'We are, however, hopeful that CMS will be getting these drugs soon and the situation will improve,' he stated. Billy says that another problem is that of debts owed to the council.

'I wish to express that I am still not happy about individuals who owe money to the council and are not doing anything feasible to pay their debts,' he said. Billy said the money that people owe the council amounts to more than P10 million. This includes SHHA and service levy. 'I wish to reiterate the disappointment I expressed in the last speech that the same money could be used for development endeavours,' he said. He urged councillors to remind debtors in their wards about the arrears.