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He bemoaned the fact that many people from Bulilima and Mangwe districts were working in South Africa and Botswana when there was no meaningful development at home.
“Plumtree is an area with a lot of people working in the Diaspora. Most of them are professionals in different fields and some have businesses. We need to come up with investment strategies and opportunities to attract these people,” said Mr Luthe.
“There is a need to absorb the youths who leave school in our local institutions instead of letting them cross the border. We should create jobs for them and utilise their skills.
“It is better for people to excel and work hard for their country than to exhaust their potential in the Diaspora.”
Mr Luthe said his council had already started conducting awareness campaigns over the issue. He said the council was working on creating a database for the youths in the two districts, which it would use to link them with learning institutions and companies.
Mr Luthe said his council unveiled a total budget of US$6,3 million for its 2012 plans.
He said US$2,7 million of this budget would cater for capital projects.
Mr Luthe said the budget was in sync with the council’s 2012-2016 corporate strategy.
The strategy has nine priority areas that include investment promotion, quality internal management systems, leadership and corporate governance, uptake of modern information technology, stakeholder management, resource mobilisation, service delivery, poverty alleviation and sustainable natural resource management.
He said all council departments would with effect from next month come up with work plans to operationalise the strategy in order to upgrade the image of the town.
On the council’s quest for municipal status, Mr Luthe said negotiations with the parent ministry were at an advanced stage. He said that the council needed to have an ambulance service among other requirements of attaining the municipal status.
Mr Luthe said 2011 was a very difficult year for his council as it had challenges in paying its workers on time.
He, however, said the council was working on identifying alternative revenue generation strategies instead of relying on rates.
“We have realised that it is not sustainable to run the council with revenue from rates alone. We now want to diversify our revenue strategy such that by 2016, we would be able to generate more than 20 percent of our budget from non-traditional sources of income,” said Mr Luthe.
“We want to come up with sources of income that do not impinge on someone’s income. For instance, we have already ventured into ranching and we have 40 beasts. We will also be venturing into poultry. We are also considering doing quarry and sand abstraction to supply the construction sector in the town.”
Online Reporter