Isaac Nyeku, the Mayor of Francistown, has expressed concern over the arrears owed the city council for service levy and material loans by the public.
During a full council on Monday, Nyeku stressed that the situation has worsened because the council has limited funds for much needed services.
“Failure to pay towards house loans means that there will not be any money in the loan revolving funds thereby denying other residents who wish to access loans from doing so,” he said.
The Mayor indicated that the council is owed over a million pula for service levy and building material loans.
He pleaded with council members to try and talk with the people in their different wards to pay back the funds.
Among other issues, the mayor pointed out that during the beginning of this year, the council floated an advertisement in the newspapers informing people who applied for plots in 1988 to 2001 to come to the council offices for information update, which is necessitated by the computerization process, but indicated that the response has been disappointing.
“I am appealing to those who have applied for SHHA plots prior to 2001 to come to our SHHA offices in order to update information on their applications, lest they will not be considered for allocation of plots in the future,” Nyeku warned.
Speaking on the projects in the city, the mayor expressed concern over the construction of the Francistown-Ramokgwebana road and the Francistown Stadium indicating that the projects are going at a snail’s pace. He added that there are a lot of projects in the city which are behind schedule.
“Most of the projects in the city are behind schedule and I hope that relevant measures will be put in place to speed up the completion of these projects,” the Mayor lamented.
Nyeku went further to mention that one of the major concerns in the city is poor waste management, which poses the threat of bringing in diseases like diarrhea, cholera and malaria and added that it can be fatal when it comes to children under the age of 5 years. He also highlighted that such diseases are prone to squalid conditions and urged the community to participate in waste management activities.
The mayor established that Tuberculosis (TB) is also a worrisome factor in the city.
“The City of Francistown currently has 261 tuberculosis patients on treatment and out of this number, 10 of them are Multi Drug Resistant (MDR) cases and 1 is Extreme drug resistance (X ÔÇô DR),” said Nyeku.
He added that it is a worrisome situation as occurrences of MDR XDR cases indicate some treatment failure.
He, however, said that although TB in the city is a challenge at least the government has come up with a concept of community TB care strategy whereby the patients will be given treatment at home by the community or family members, adding that such measures were put in place to try and address the challenges of lack of transport for some patients who need to go for treatment.
