Gaborone City Mayor Austin Abraham admitted yesterday that the city council is unable to achieve 100% customer satisfaction in all areas. Some of Gaborone City Council's (GCC) challenges are mainly related to inadequate budget and challenges brought about by the growth of the city and its hinterlands.
“During the recent rains, we experienced flooding in most areas of the city due to inadequate stormwater drainage structures and backlog in maintaining the existing ones. This resulted in the closure of Segoditshane Road and I thank road users for cooperating with GCC and law enforcement. There is a need to review the stormwater master plan that was developed in 2002 and to ensure that the recommendations of the master plan are implemented. With increased stormwater runoff caused by ongoing developments in the city, we need to engage the Central Government to finance the construction of stormwater drains in the city as a matter of urgency. In addition, our roads, mainly internal roads have long surpassed their design life and as such develop potholes. If funding was available most of these roads could be undergoing reconstruction,” Abraham said.
He added that they are experiencing the same challenge with streetlights, which are also due for reconstruction/reinstallation, especially in areas where wooden poles were used. However, Abraham said they continue to use the meagre resources to do reactive maintenance. For instance, he said they use road levies, recurrent budgets, and community constituency development funds to attend to some of these challenges.
