By ALICE NACHILEMBE
Chililabombwe Municipal Council has approved a budget of K85,645,607.00 for the 2019 Civic year.
Council has also increased Ward Development Fund (WDF) from K75,000 to K80, 000 per ward translating into K1.76 million for all the 22 wards.
Speaking during the 2019 budget presentation, Finance, Valuation and Commercial Undertakings and General Purposes Committee Chairperson Councillor Lewis Mwila told the house that Government expected all Councils to be innovative and proactive in revenue mobilization, hence management and his Committee had strategized on some revenue sources that would be able to sustain the 2019 budget.
Mr Mwila said that K73,961,907 of the 2019 budget would be financed through locally generated revenue, whilst K10,284,000 and K1,400.000 would be funded through National Support Grants and Constituency Development Fund (CDF) respectively.
He also said that the Council had also set aside K30.4 Million resulting in 41.2% of the budget for provision of service delivery to improve the life of the residents in line with the Councils’ strategic plan.
Mr Mwila said that notable projects to be funded in the 2019 budget among others included, construction of a modern bus station in the Central Business District, purchase of a bull dozer for opening up of new roads, legalization of unplanned settlement areas such as Kawama and PP Zambia, construction of a new dump site and maintenance of feeder roads in the peri-urban areas.
Chililabombwe Mayor Christerbel Mulala urged all Councillors and Management to work together in order to raise money to fund the 2019 budget if the planned projects and programmes were to be actualized.
The 2019 budget of K85,645,607.00 indicates an increase of 29.9% against the previous budget of K65,900,170.00.
