THE DA has presented an alternate budget plan to the 2014/2015 budget to be presented by finance MMC, Moses Makwakwa, next week Thursday.
The presentation was done to the media only at the council chambers in Germiston on Tuesday.
According to DA shadow finance MMC, Eddie Taylor, the metro’s budget falls short in three main areas, namely revenue enhancement, cost cutting and eradicating corruption. He said in a metro where the DA governs, dealing with these aspects would ensure that Ekurhuleni would be a well-run city.
“The Ekurhuleni Metro Municipality’s budget is hindered by loss of revenue of about R1,2 billion due to uncollected rates and service charges and long outstanding debts from other spheres of government and local businesses. It is vital that the metro increases its collection rate from the existing 87 per cent to, at the very least, its own target of 93 per cent or ideally the DA’s proposed target of 95 per cent,” he said.
Taylor furthermore pointed out that the budget fell short as it had remained the same, citing that addressing the varying problems the metro was faced with with the same solution had proven futile.
“Big issues such as unemployment among the youth, low economic growth, low revenue, excessive losses, underspending, deteriorating infrastructure, accommodating population influx, poor management and poor by-law enforcement are not adequately addressed in this budget,” he said.
He delved into various aspects the metro could look at addressing and, according to him, would help maximise how and where they spent the budget.
“Looking at municipal property they’re in a state of disrepair, maintenance is only reactive and there’s a lack of security when it comes to council assets with many things in municipal offices going missing and not being accounted,” he said.
He added that there was underspending of allocated budgets, insufficient money spent on technical resources as well as slow response to fault reporting by the community.
Taylor believes by implementing preventative maintenance programmes and allocating and spending more on repairs and maintenance in line with National Treasury guidelines, the metro would be able to curb overspending on maintenance and often time replacement of assets that should have been looked after.
Taylor mentioned that the metro had about R1.3 billion of uncollected revenue due to inconsistent and unjust application of credit control. Over R1 billion a year is held back from the budget to provide for collection. The debts have resulted in areas with high payment rates having to carry the burden of subsidising areas where collections are not enforced adequately.
“The budget also needs to look at economic development with the high unemployment rates within our metro, particularly among young adults. When an economy is not growing fast enough, it is unable to absorb the unemployed,” said Taylor.
He suggested that the creation of one-stop-shop business centres would help support new businesses and boost growth. Also by raising the portion of the capital budget spent on economic development from 18 per cent to 30 per cent. With the metro’s support and investment, Taylor believes that economic growth in the metro is inevitable.
What the DA’s alternative budget puts forward is cutting out the unnecessary expenditure and focussing the budget on spending, which will benefit all residents of Ekurhuleni where the long term plans are included, so there is no shortfall in the future. The metro is also advised to be consistent and transparent with budget processes.
