Budget should benefit children – Junior Council

The Bulawayo Junior City Council has called on the city fathers to ensure that the 2014 local authority budget caters for children’s specific need. This came out at a workshop organised by NANGO for the Junior Council to interrogate the proposed council tariffs for 2014.

One of the major outcomes of the workshop was that the Junior Council managed to analyse the tariffs schedule and to come up with suggestions for alternative revenue sources to enable council to fund the Children’s 10 Point Plan.

Speaking at the workshop, the Junior Mayor, Mbonisi Ngubeni said children should be the major beneficiaries of the local budget. He also emphasized that council should introduce child-friendly desks in all its departments to ensure that children’s issues are mainstreamed.

“Children are the future of this country therefore they should be given priority in all of council’s business including the 2014 budget. We also call upon council departments to introduce child-friendly desks for easy access and interaction with children.” He said.

All in a day's work: Junior Councillors pose for a photo with NANGO
staff members after the workshop.

Other officials within the file and rank of the Junior Council echoed the Junior Mayor’s sentiments adding that the Children’s 10 Point Plan should be the guiding document for council in its intervention in children’s matters.

Commenting on council’s commitment to attending to children’s issues in an interview, the Mayor of the city of Bulawayo Martin K Moyo said children are an interest group for council.

“Children’s issues are very important for council to prioritize as they are not only part of the community today but also our future residents and city fathers,” he said.

The 2014 council has been dubbed as a stand still budget as it is still the same as that of 2013. This means that there are no changes in the tariffs in the coming year. However the junior council has suggested other means that council may explore to increase its revenue base and finance children’s issues.

Some of the suggested alternative revenue sources include the repossession of the Bulawayo power station by council, converting beer gardens into factory shops which can be rented at high rates as well as hastening the installation of prepaid water meters among others.