This document serves to outline some of the key milestones and deliverables achieved by the City of Ekurhuleni in the past five years of council’s term of office, with regard to matters of governance.
IRPTN
The Harambee bus service, as part of the Integrated Rapid Public Transport Network (IRPTN), will be launched before the end of 2016. The metro will pilot Harambee in the middle of this year.
When Harambee is fully operational, it will help to link the different towns and townships within the city, as well as with its neighbouring cities of Joburg and Tshwane.
Free Wi-Fi
Free wi-fi is now available at over 1 500 hot spots and is used by over 700 000 users. This project is still growing and will continue to roll out across the region.
Wasteful Expenditure
The city reduced wasteful expenditure from R20.8-million in the 2013/14 financial year, to R1.8-m in the last financial year. It also reduced its irregular spending from R235-m to R68-m in the last financial year, reducing it by R187-m.
The new era in the city’s finances can be attributed to, among other interventions, improved quality of management in different departments, not just on governance and risk, but more crucially, in operations and project management.
Also important is improved oversight, administratively through the finance department, together with legal, audit and risk committees.
Aerotropolis
The Aerotropolis masterplan, which places the city well on its way to becoming the first aerotropolis in Africa, is one of the legacy projects that was achieved in the past five years. The master plan projects a new city and narrates a sequence of massive developments that will take place in the next 30 years.
Moody’s Rating
Ekurhuleni is also a good place to invest after its recent four-notch upgrade by Moody’s Investors Services. This places the City at an Aaa national scale rating from the previous A1. It also received a global scale rating of Baa2.
The good credit rating profile, in terms of Moody’s, means Ekurhuleni has an ”extremely strong” capacity to meet its financial commitments. This allows it to raise debt at favourable rates, putting less onerous debt repayment costs on residents.
Ekurhuleni is rated at the high end of the range of South African municipalities.
Clean Audit
Some of the notable gains of the City is the achievement of a clean audit two years in a row, declaring the City to be financially healthy for the 2013/14 and 2014/15 financial years.
A clean audit gives practical meaning to the constitutional rights of citizens to expect a clean, transparent, accountable local government by exposing financial practices of municipal management to scrutiny, oversight and possible sanction.
Ekurhuleni and five of its entities received a clean audit outcome.
The Auditor General provides an independent audit of how municipalities manage public funds. If audits were not conducted and results published, the public would have had no idea of what was going on with the management of municipal finances.
GDS 2055
The city adopted its blueprint up to 2055, with the approval of the Growth and Development Strategy, which paves the way for the city to move ahead, to becoming a sustainable city by 2055.
Information supplied by Themba Gadebe, spokesman for the metro
