Gaborone City Council is faced with severe challenges of high prepaid electricity bills for street and traffic lights.
When officially opening the GCC Full Council meeting recently, Gaborone Mayor- Austin Abraham, said that on average the City Council spends P500,000 monthly on street lighting.
Abraham said that a tender for installing solar streetlights in Block 8 and Extension 16 is at an advertising stage.
“These are continuous efforts by Council which, with your support, will illuminate the city when fully implemented.”
The Mayor said that direction of installing solar streetlights through CCP funding will reduce the incurred electricity bill.
“Compatriots, on that matter, there is a notable improvement in the Gaborone power supply distribution network, we no longer have load shedding like other major African cities. Energy self-sufficiency is a remarkable achievement by the government, attributed to the maintenance strategy in place and improved customer engagement through various communication platforms by Botswana Power Corporation (BPC).”
Abraham said that people should note that some of the power interruptions experienced in the city are planned and necessary to allow maintenance works to be carried out in the region to improve the network availability further.
He said that BPC always communicates such interruptions through the media.
However, the Mayor said that vandalism of power infrastructure equipment remains a challenge, including theft of copper cables, aluminum conductors, customer power supply service cables and equipment that is hit by motorists almost daily.
“This leads to unplanned and emergency power supply interruptions,” he said.