Budget meetings never changed a cent!

I believe not many ratepayers attended the annual “Show and Tell” meeting on the KwaDukuza Municipal draft budget this year. Perhaps the reasons are these meetings have proved wasteful and fruitless for ratepayers in the past because:

* Ratepayers are not involved in preparing 85% of the budget – it is already set in concrete leaving only 15% up for discussion;

* The meetings have never changed the budget, not even by one cent!

* With 20 senior officials attending and heads of departments giving their reports, it becomes a meeting for officials rather than ratepayers;

* There is no attempt to make ratepayers feel welcome. In fact it appears as if the meetings are only being held to comply with the municipal law. What about showing some hospitality and providing tea and coffee?

* There is not much good news in the budget with mostly talk of increases in rates and other charges.

The forecast for the rates was a 6% increase. Note that the rates tariffs didn’t change i.e. they stayed the same as last year. However properties were revalued and as a result I will have an increase of 11%. As if that wasn’t bad enough, properties valued up to R130,000 pay no rates but those valued over that amount only get a R100,000 exemption and not R130,000! When last, if ever, were properties of R130,000 revalued at this lower end of the market?

Another gripe is the R34.17 basic (availability) charge. Does it apply when the households use up their free units?

We are awaiting the new electricity tariffs. The 41.6% increase in water tariff is punitive specially for the 9000 odd pensioners who have retired in the area. The new signage tariff is too painful and takes up too many pages to discuss here. However, there are some encouraging signs:

* Subsistence and travel, refreshment, conferences and workshop expenses have been cut by 10% while printing and stationery stay the same.

* A proper cut of these expenses such as 20-30% would stimulate the 2% economic growth needed to halt the spiralling price increases of municipal services.

* While our rates basis is small, collections are high with almost 80% of rates collected from dependable ratepayers.

Not so encouraging is the fact that the total staff remuneration for the year is R308,739,334 of which the 53 councillors’ share is R20,188,000. That is a whopping sum of ratepayers money for looking after our affairs. In addition, there is going to be the Special Rates Area (SRA) where the commercial owners pay extra rates to improve on the poor quality of municipal services.

F.E. DU TOIT

Ballito