The Executive Mayor of Mogale City Local Municipality delivered his last State of the City Address (Soca) on 29 April and the Freedom Front Plus said it was but a repeat of previous speeches.
Amanda de Lange, Freedom Front Plus Leader in the West Rand Region, commented that the speech was “just another stuck record”.
“A few new empty promises and disguised wasteful expenditures were added but overall the speech lacked any substance,” she said.
“The mayor did not address the massive water losses in Mogale City either. Only referring to the R12 million it costed to reseal the Kenmare reservoir. Tax payers has no idea how serious and vast the water losses problem in Mogale City really is. Costing us a fortune every month and millions every year,” she said.
“Another critical matter that was carefully avoided in the mayor’s speech, is the finance and admin management system (problem). After years and millions of rands lost to court cases, new systems that never materialised and the latest system that is also still not usable, municipal accounts still has to be done on the old BIQ system as well as the new system. This whole exercise is costing the tax payer into the billions of rands, with still nothing to show,” De Lange added.
“There was no mention of commitment from the mayor that the municipal manager is managing this city’s financial situation as prescribed in the Municipal Act.”
During his address, Mayor Koketso Calvin Seerane announced more multi-billion rand future projects and plans to curb water losses and the commencement of Gauteng’s first waste-to-energy project.
“We also focused on improving revenue collection through installation of 39 000 new Prepaid Water Meters. This also assists consumers across the board to manage their own water consumption. We have appointed a contractor to install a telemetry system for water reservoirs, pump stations and related software. The system will assist in real time fault detection in these strategic installations and will come at a cost of R5 million,” Seerane said.
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