The Herald E-Edition

Bay budget ‘tweaks’ upset coalition partners

Key elements discussed at six-hour weekend meeting missing from rejig, they say

Andisa Bonani bonania@theherald.co.za

‘we made a request for R90m for roads but only R26m has been provided, which means we will fall short in our plan’

The new Nelson Mandela Bay governing coalition partners, expecting an overhaul of the proposed 2023/2024 budget to include their parties’ plans after a marathon weekend meeting, found to their annoyance that only last-minute tweaks were made instead.

The proposed changes could see R47m set aside for a mayoral cup tournament, installation of security equipment, recruitment of artisans and the much-vaunted modern financial accounting system, mSCOA.

It was revealed during a mayoral committee meeting yesterday that the money could be taken from the city’s cash reserves.

However, it will first have to go through the council today, when a second attempt will be made to pass the more than R18bn budget.

At yesterday’s meeting, several coalition partners were unhappy with the rejigged budget because it left out key elements discussed at the six-hour weekend meeting.

The city’s political leadership and administrative wing met to discuss service delivery matters to enforce wide-ranging changes to the budget.

Coalition partners were also unhappy that their 100-day-inoffice plan — meant to be consolidated by mayor Gary van Niekerk — was not addressed in the budget.

Deputy mayor Babalwa Lobishe said she assumed there would be a separate report on the plan because it needed to be aligned with the budget.

“I thought all the changes we proposed in the budget [at the weekend] would be influenced by our 100-day plan, but none of the things we discussed are part of this,” she said.

“If we are going to entertain the budget outside that plan we might miss what we want to achieve in those 100 days.”

Lobishe said when she inspected the budget and IDP there was a disjuncture because the ward-based allocations were a copy and paste of previous documents.

“If we are going to pass the budget on Wednesday in that condition, we will be doing an injustice to the people of the city because we won’t affect the areas we serve.”

Van Niekerk said he was not aware that they had to table the 100-day-in-office plan yesterday.

“The document is available. We just didn’t know we had to bring it here.

“But I have heard all the concerns that were raised and I can’t reiterate enough that we need to keep to the promises we make in these meetings and hold each other accountable because if we don’t, the opposition will.”

Asked about the details of the mayoral cup after the meeting, Van Niekerk said he was not yet sure but it would include sports such as soccer and rugby.

Chief financial officer Selwyn Thys said one of the most important aspects of the budget was the city’s plan to implement mSCOA (Municipal Standard Chart of Accounts), a long-standing issue the National Treasury had raised concerns over.

mSCOA is a Treasury requirement for all municipalities to link up with the national government, and the metro has spent well over R100m in the past several years to try to get it operational.

“The National Treasury indicated that they’ve been very patient with the institution in terms of the implementation of mSCOA and if we don’t do it, our future grants may be affected,” Thys said.

He said limited tweaking was allowed on the budget,

considering the time frame of the new government taking over on May 26, which was close to the start of a new financial year.

“We met with the National Treasury last Wednesday to indicate that our budget is funded.

“During that engagement, they highlighted that our collection rate was not at the budgeted level of 80% at this stage and I’ve raised this before.”

However, he said April was the first month in a long time in which the city had achieved an 83% collection rate, which had to be maintained and closely monitored.

“Once council adopts the budget with the proposed amendments, it will be incorporated with the final budget to be submitted to the National Treasury and that’s nothing unusual, it’s been done in the past due to time constraints.”

The recommended budget amendments include changes to the:

● Safety and security department for safer city operational costs (R5m);

● Mayor’s office for the hosting of the mayoral cup (R2m);

● Electricity and energy department for the recruitment of artisans (R5m);

● Infrastructure and engineering department for the recruitment of artisans (R5m);

● City manager’s office for mSCOA project management costs (R20m); and

● Safety and security department for the installation of security equipment (R10m).

No further details were given about the exact spending in the report.

Thys said officials were expecting R100m from high energy users, which would be ringfenced for the roads and transport directorate and any other pressing issues that arose.

He said the city had also applied to the National Energy Regulator of SA (Nersa) for an average electricity tariff increase of 15.1%, more than three percentage points lower than the 18.46% proposed by the regulator.

“I will put pressure on the administration so we can get feedback on this by the end of June.

“Based on previous experience, Nersa has never rejected our proposals but if they do, we would have to implement what they initially proposed.”

Thys suggested another meeting be convened in two weeks’ time to make amendments to the ward-based budget.

Public health political head Thsonono Buyeye raised concerns about how the budget would be affected if Nersa rejected the 15.1% tariff increase by the end of June.

“I said last week I knew there wouldn’t be many changes in the budget and not all of us will be happy, as is evident right now, however, we are never happy with the budget but I won’t get to that after our engagement on Saturday, where we discussed and agreed on everything.”

He welcomed the budget and the efforts made for the metro to be mSCOA- compliant.

Sport, recreation, arts and culture political head Bassie Kamana said he was not thrilled because no provisions were made for what he had requested, such as funding for Mandela Month and the absorption of 30 lifeguards.

“I am not seeing anything we discussed as part of the 100days-in-office plan as discussed on Saturday, which in my department also includes the absorption of a further 30 lifeguards because we need them.

“They provide an essential service.”

Roads and transport political head Bradley Murray said though the Patriotic Alliance did not have enough seats in council to threaten not to support the budget, he too had matters he was not happy with.

“When I look at the budget, we made a request for R90m for roads but only R26m has been provided, which means we will fall short in our plans.”

He said R20m was requested for fleet services, but no provisions were made, which meant honeysuckers used to unblock drains would not be procured.

Murray said it was a problem that several aspects of the budget did not reflect what the party had requested.

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2023-06-07T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-06-07T07:00:00.0000000Z

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