Council adopts 2015/16 budget

ABAQULUSI Municipality’s Council adopted the budget for 2015/2016 on Thursday last week. The new budget and its revised tariffs will come into effect on July 1.

In her Mayor’s Report attached to the annual budget, the Mayor, Cllr PN Khaba, initially summarised the national view in the light of President Zuma’s State of the Nation Address. Among these remarks was that water was a “critical resource”, and that several water resource projects were in the implementation or planning phases around the country, but she did not say whether one of these projects was the raising of the Klipfontein Dam wall, to ensure AbaQulusi’s water supply.

She said that budgeting was primarily about the choices that the municipality had to make between competing priorities and fiscal realities. She said it was everybody’s business to make local government work, and that the “Back to Basics” programme had been launched to “promote good governance and effective administration through cutting wastage, spending public funds wisely, hiring competent staff and ensuring transparency and accountability in the municipality”.

A large part of the Mayor’s Report was taken up with cost-cutting measures as recommended by the Provincial Treasury, In this regard, over 20 points were highlighted, from a review of the municipality’s organigram to minimising the use of colour pages in printing municipal documents.

One of the items identified for cost-cutting is simply put as “Catering for meetings to be stopped”. Given that the budget road show meeting at the Library Hall was reported to have been lavishly catered for, it is not known how seriously the Mayor and her administration will take these cost-cutting measures in the new financial year.

Council adopted the budget with a Total Operating Revenue of R511,779,000, and Total Operating Expenditure of R545,165,000, thus a budgeted operating deficit of R33,386,000.