Because Botswana is a unitary state, the power of the local councils are delegated from the national level.

The Ministry of Local Government, Land and Housing has a major influence in terms of personnel hiring and training, budgeting, and development planning.

He advocates for a stronger city council with the power to determine budgets and hire and fire clerks and officers.

The city clerk has various advisory committees and secretaries to aid with the job; these helping positions include the deputy clerk, the secretariat, the head of the treasury, the Self-Help Housing Agency, and the departments of engineering, health, fire, education, social and community development, building and architecture,[4] and an HIV/AIDS co-ordinator.

[5] The Gaborone City Council is in charge of providing services like sewage management[6] and street lighting[7] to its citizens, but the council depends on parastatals like the Water Utilities Corporation and the Botswana Power Corporation to supply the water and electricity respectively.

[7] The GCC is also responsible for running public health clinics where the cost is less than one United States dollar.

In the third quarter of the 2011 fiscal year, the GCC withheld 6 million Botswana pula (US$756,000 as of June 2012) from private contractors.