More money for feeding fat cats, less money for everything else
"Why do we continue to cater for councillors when we understand the financial position of the municipality? When the people we represent are not catered for? None of us here is going to starve! We can always eat in our homes!"
“The culprits that are putting strain on the budget are sitting right here. We are the culprits,” said ANC councillor, Bheka Mtshali, at the mid-year budget assessment.
“Our financial situation demands that we reduce our costs on catering, and subsistence and travelling. Why do we continue to cater for councillors when we understand the financial position of the municipality? When the people we represent are not catered for? None of us here is going to starve! We can always eat in our homes!”
Cllr Mtshali’s emotional outburst came after it was discovered that AbaQulusi municipality intended to increase the budget for council catering by R80 000, and the budget for subsistence and travelling by R600 000.
Furthermore, overtime claimed by municipal workers in the last month has exceeded R1 million and the budget road-show is now expected to cost ratepayers R650 000.
The increases in staff costs were proposed despite the fact that the drought is expected to cause a R30 million deficit in the budget over the next six months, and the budget for maintenance of infrastructure was cut by about R5million as a result.
Mayor Patience Khaba presented the Mayor’s report on the mid-year budget assessment at a meeting last Thursday, which began an hour and 15 minutes late after the council struggled to reach a quorum.
At the meeting, Mayor Khaba stressed the fact that, “There was no more money in the municipality, which was even one month in arrears with its Eskom bill.” Other challenges mentioned by the mayor were, “aging infrastructure and limited human resources due to strikes.
DA whip, Sbu Nkosi, encouraged municipal staff to, “leave out overtime and subsistence and travelling costs,” saying he doubted if the municipality’s priorities were focussed in the right direction.
“Water is a basic necessity,” said Cllr Nkosi. “We can’t live without it and we have already lost life because of the scarcity of water. If we can take money away from unnecessary projects and use it for drought relief, we will be able to help people.”
See next week’s Vryheid Herald for a more in-depth look on the impact of the adjustment budget.
