04 Jun 2024

Palapye District councilors have been urged to encourage the communities in their wards to take up programmes designed to improve their lives. 

The chairperson of the Palapye District Council, Mr Jordan Makhura, made the request to the councillors as he opened the full council session on Tuesday. 

Mr Makhura said the government introduced several programmes aimed at empowering the community members among them Temo Letlotlo, Chema Chema Fund and Thuo Letlotlo programmes, which were launched this year. 

He therefore asked the councilors to take responsibility for encouraging the communities to take up the programmes.

 On other issues, Mr Makhura commended councillors and staff members for their continued commitment towards serving the communities in the district and improving the livelihoods of Batswana. 

He said their continued involvement in implementing the council’s mandate had shown great results and they have since achieved some of the major milestones in the first quarter of 2024 such as the groundbreaking ceremony for the Construction of Extension 5 Primary School in Palapye, which is currently at 20 per cent  completion stage against the 17 per cent planned. 

Mr Makhura said they also managed to hold the Palapye District Council Strategic Planning retreat, which was held in Francistown and  Palapye taking services to the people initiative, which was held in Radisele, Mokungwane and Mogapi. 

He also pointed out that the other major milestones which they achieved was the LED-LEA Stakeholder conference, which was held in Palapye from May 21-23 this year and the introduction of the Toll free line, to be launched in the near future. 

He therefore said this was a time when they have to act as a collective force than ever before and requested such an approach from everyone.

 Mr Makhura said recently the government embarked on a robust response to education needs in the country since it has been a national cry. 

He said the central region had received a fleet of 74 vehicles for the 10 sub regions, including the regional office itself and out of the 74 vehicles, the Palapye sub region has been allocated 10 vehicles both for the office and the schools. 

Mr Makhura said as a result, almost all the secondary schools in the sub region had vehicles and this is a motivation to the schools to work hard and produce better, improved and quality results. 

He, however, urged the Palapye sub region to do everything possible to ensure that the vehicles are taken care of and are used for the purpose they have been purchased for. 

Mr Makhura congratulated the Palapye Technical College, which scooped position one out of 40 technical colleges and brigades in the 2023 academic results. 

In celebrating their achievement, he said, they held their 2023 Academic Excellence Awards ceremony where four learners who got national awards and 52 staff members who performed well were appreciated to raise the level of performance of the College through appreciating learner’s creativity, encouraging positive competition and inculcating the culture of commitment and excellence to academic performance. 

He thanked councillors for their involvement in encouraging communities to register to vote in the just ended Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) voters’ registration period. 

Mr Makhura informed councilors that preparations for the NDP12/DDP9 was underway. “You will recall that a decision was made by government to align development plans with the political cycle hence this exercise, which is expected to be complete by 30th July 2024 at local level,” he said. ENDs