Councillors at a recent special full council meeting bashed SPEDU and its various initiatives, saying it had "dismally" failed to diversify the town. Its alternative, the LED, is a product of collaboration between the Council and SPEDU and contains strategies aimed at diversifying the town and prolonging its economic life.At the full council meeting, councillor Godfrey Mbaiwa expressed concern that the north-eastern town is yet to see SPEDU's achievements.He said SPEDU could not attribute BCL's Polaris 11 to itself because the mine as an institution conceived the initiative. The fast-moving Polaris 11 initiative is BCL's attempt at diversifying and extending the mine's existence beyond 2020 through various projects such as extending mining into other minerals.
"I foresee a trend where SPEDU will relocate to where its services will be needed since it is now a company, so we cannot say we will benefit much from it,Ó said Mbaiwa, alluding to SPEDU's transformation from a ministerial unit to a parastatal last year. Councillor Lekang Mukokomani urged the local authority to tighten its ropes on the LED strategy for it to be a success. He said the council needed to challenge SPEDU on how it can help the strategy to be a success. "SPEDU is just a stumbling block which if not removed will cause the LED strategy to fail," said Mukokomani. Echoing the prevailing sentiments, councillor Tshiamo Ikaneng, said the LED strategy must be designed such that it does not fall into SPEDU's pitfalls."The new strategy shows that we have tightened our ropes as council as SPEDU has failed us," he added. Another councillor, Mmapula Mmidi-Phuduhudu, praised LED as an excellent initiative designed specifically to address the town's problems. She said while the country has a lot of policies, implementation remains a challenge, expressing hope that the new strategy does not see the same. In defence of SPEDU, outgoing town clerk, Mompati Seleka said the unit's mandate was not implementation but facilitation and coordination. Seleka, who is also a SPEDU board member, said the unit has carried out studies on developments in the region and also identified tourism clusters such as a proposed nature reserve.
