New Gaborone Mayor seeks power to hire and fire
Wednesday, October 05, 2011
Nkayigwa, of the Botswana Movement for Democracy (BMD) was speaking after he and Florence Shagwa, of the Botswana Congress Party (BCP), won elections held yesterday to fill the vacant posts of mayor and deputy mayor.
Addressing an impromptu press conference at the Gaborone Civic Centre, Nkayigwa said the status quo where local authorities are run by government is counter-productive. He said councils should be in a position to determine their budgets and even hire contractors to undertake development projects.
"But unfortunately we have a situation where most of the contractors doing projects in Gaborone are not Batswana. You will find that Asian contractors have taken all the jobs and this does not help in citizen empowerment," he said.
The recent disclosure by the IEC that 2,513 registrations have been turned down due to various irregularities should prompt all Batswana to meticulously review the voters' rolls and address concerns about rejected registrations.The disparities flagged by the IEC are troubling and emphasise the significance of rigorous voter registration processes.Out of the rejected registrations, 29 individuals were disqualified due to non-existent Omang...