Tshwane metro is happy with the progress made to turn around the R2-billion deficit inherited from the previous administration, said mayor Solly Msimanga.
However, this did not mean the city was out of the woods yet, he said.
Msimanga said this at a public meeting to give feedback on the city’s budget at the Sammy Marks library hall on Wednesday evening.
He said the metro had to put together a budget that will address critical issues in the city. Previously there was no budget allocated for maintenance or preventative maintenance, for instance.
The metro will allocate R1.2 billion for preventative maintenance across the city. This will be used for replacing old water pipes and electrical connections that cause power outages during rainy weather among other things.
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Fixing roads not only in the city centre but also in the outlying townships that do not have tar roads, was also a priority.
He dismissed claims that the city was cancelling its indigent programme.
“Under this programme, the poor and needy are exempted from paying for services and instead they receive a fixed amount of free water and electricity per month.
“When we came into power we found that there were over 2 000 people on the indigent database that did not belong there. These included municipal employees, police officers, nurses and businesses. Therefore we are reviewing the database.”
The working hours of clinics across the city have also been extended to accommodate people who have to go to work.
This is done on a trial run basis since “we are not sure how much it will cost to run the clinics for 24 hours”, he said.
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“There are things we need to consider such as equipment and labour costs.”
Msimanga said the city was working on creating an environment in which business will be able to prosper.
Since taking over, the new metro administration has attracted more than R2.3 billion in investments in just over a year. Their 5-year target is R10 billion.
Msimanga said R660 million has been allocated to revitalise industrial and economic nodes in the city such as Waltloo, Centurion and Pretoria West amongst others.
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