Maiketso was speaking at the opening of Francistown ordinary full council meeting in Francistown this week. He said that poverty eradication is one of the initiatives that should be prioritised, adding that the city council was currently addressing the matter. "Four hundred and seventy-two beneficiaries have been enrolled in backyard projects for Phase I and 905 have been enrolled for phase II in our city," he said. He further said that the council was allocated P7,228,953 at the beginning of July and the funds are both for training and funding of alternative packages carried out by FCC through Social and Community Development (S&CD) department.
The mayor went on to talk about some beneficiaries that were trained. "I must hasten to indicate that a total of 150 beneficiaries were trained in small business management and preparations are on-going to take all those who were not trained for training," said Maiketso. He added that beneficiaries are trained in different categories, ranging from beauty and hair care, floor polish production, food catering and business management. However, he said that water availability was a challenge to the council, despite efforts of finding ways of providing water for the identified areas for gardening purposes.
