Please municipality – give us a break

‘Fiscal Strike’ writes:- NO DOUBT at the moment or very soon, AbaQulusi Municipality will begin to start the budgeting process for the 2014/2015 financial year which will begin on July 1. We are going to have a general election before then, so I imagine some municipalities might try to be “the good guys” and keep the increases in services tariffs at a reasonable level.
Whether our municipality does or not, I want to appeal to the people who compile the budget to consider the financial predicament that is faced by the people in this municipality, and I suppose in every municipality.
But in this municipality we have a huge number, a vast number of people who are poor and who, with the job situation, have little chance of improving their circumstances in the coming year. Please, let us have what the Vryheid Herald once called an “Austerity Budget.”
Let’s minimise spending to the absolute essentials, and plan increases accordingly, instead of increasing tariffs to make unnecessary spending possible. The average Vryheid/AbaQulusi resident is too complacent. Year after year we accept above-inflation increases without a murmur, and in all honestly, what do we see for our money? Very little. In the past year fuel prices alone have sucked thousands of rands out of the economy, and things look like they are going to get even tougher. Please, an austerity budget this year.