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North West District Council Chairman, Kebareeditse Ntsogotho called the prudent use of the department of social and community development (S&CD)’s budget. The department has received the largest share of the council budget this financial year.
Speaking during the special council meeting recently, Ntsogotho who has publicly vowed to fight rampant corruption within his council reiterated that there are a lot of malfeasance in the district, noting that public funds are stolen under the watch of those who are assigned to look after them.
Ntsogotho highlighted that most of the funds under the department of S&CD are stolen through tenders of food supply to orphans and destitute. He added that some of the beneficiaries are not even qualified for the program but are somehow receiving food baskets every month.
“We have learnt that some of the social workers do not do their assessments well and at times we find people who are not eligible to be called orphans or destitute in the programme,” he revealed.
Delivering council’s budget on Monday, NWDC finance and works committee chairperson Luke Motlaleselelo revealed that this year the S&CD department has the largest share of the budget amounting to P58,551,912.00 representing 23.60% of the total budget estimates.
According to him, the department had previously proposed P72 million in their budget estimates to cover their sections like Remote Area Development Programme (RADP), social welfare, home economics and case work but due to funds constraints, they had to cut it to about P58 million so that they can augment some of the departments in the district.
He said out of the total budget for S&CD, the relief of destitute vote received more than P27 million to provide food to destitute and orphans adding that the orphans and destitute continues to be registered every month therefore there is need for the department to get a bigger share.
“The other share of the money goes into the other section of the department like home economics, case work and salaries for staffs and other workers,” he explained.
Motlaleselelo explained that under social welfare, the department of S&CD helps Batswana under community based home care in the district and it needs more funds to manage sure issues adding that some needing people also get help from the same budget.
