Residents to dig deeper into pockets after tariff hikes

Last Monday, Tlokwe’s executive mayor, Kgotso Khumalo presented his third state of the city address and a R1.34 billion 2016/17 budget in Promosa hall.

The most important aspect of the speech and one for which residents have been waiting with bated breath has to be the municipal tariff increase.

As always, the increase in tariffs comes into effect on 1 July.

Apart from electricity, which is set to increase by 7.643 per cent and cemetery charges (9 per cent); water, property rates, sewerage and refuse removal charges and all other tariffs will increase by 6 per cent.

According to Khumalo, the municipality is undertaking and has already started with some noteworthy projects.

“Based on the 2015/16 MIG expenditure performance, Tlokwe City Council was reallocated an additional R30 million above the municipality’s original allocation. This will be spent on the construction of water reticulation in Ikageng and Promosa Extension 4.

The opposition parties had their say regarding the state of the city address and the budget. Alderman Chris Landsberg of the DA said, “We must deliver quality services as effectively, economically and timeously to as many people as we can. If we can do that, then we have done our job”. He called on the municipality to start making use of the university. “We have all the knowledge there,” he said. One of the serious concerns that he raised was the 500 houses that were built in Greenfield in 2011 that need to be rebuilt because of poor workmanship by building contractors. “We must also contact Sanral (SA National Road Agency Limited) to improve the roads in the Nelson Mandela Drive. The standard of paving in Ikageng is also not good; the roads are going to collapse,” he said. He went on to emphasise that the merger of Potchefstroom and Ventersdorp is still problematic in light of the financial implications of the merger. He said charity begins at home and told the mayor that he is letting his community down with the controversial Potchefstroom-Ventersdorp merger.

Cope’s Thabang Maduna says they welcome the budget and hope the R1.3 billion will be well spent. He raised some concerns regarding the exclusion of opposition parties from the joint political team of the amalgamation process.

He noted that the mayor’s address made no mention of Ventersdorp being dolomitic and will, therefore, cost the council millions. On a positive note, he congratulated the municipality on scooping awards for its good performance.

Francois Botha from the FF Plus says his party could not support the budget speech because of some grey areas. For one, he says the municipality is not pressing people to pay for services. His other concern is that the mayor did not include rural areas in the speech. “We must look into the rural areas.

If it’s a rainy day, you need a canoe to get to your house,” he said. He did highlight some of the positives such as Potchefstroom’s nomination for the town of the year. “It looks like we are doing something good,” he asserted.