Tshwane councillors cry foul over poor spending
The metro attributed reasons for the slow spending to delays in appointing contractors, poor performance of contractors and slow supply chain management processes.
Claims of underspending in some service delivery areas by the Tshwane metro has drawn fire from oppositions parties that accused mayor Randall Williams’ administration of mediocrity.
The opposition parties called on mayor Randall Williams to deal with issues of grant underspending as it affected service delivery.
During a council meeting on Thursday, ANC and EFF councillors were unhappy over underspending of grants when discussing a report by the financial services department on grants and subsidies spending of up to 31 January.
ANC Thabo Ntlatleng said the report had “a lot of hiccups” and raised concerns of unproductivity.
“The report details that it is about 6-30% under-expenditure in road and storm drainage related projects,” he said.
Ntlatleng said the delays in approval of contracts affected poor communities the most. He attributed the death of two boys who drowned in a quarry at a road construction project in late February to this.
Transport MMC Dikeledi Selowa dismissed this and said the project where the incident happened fell under the provincial government.
“There has been underspending on housing and upgrading of informal settlements of 100% and 102% respectfully. The areas that have been affected by this are Kudube 9, Ga-Rankuwa extension 9, Olievenhoutbosch extension 16 and Hammanskraal 10,” Ntlatleng said.
“The significance of this is that there is a consistently poor performance and mismanagement of projects and poor communities suffer the most as service delivery is affected.”
EFF’s John Lekgothoane said underspending had become a culture for the metro and the council “embraced of accepting laziness”.
“Whenever we get reports on grants and subsidies we know we are going to be told of underspending,” he said.
“We are coming to the end of our term in office and to date, none of the departments has ever met their targets on grants and subsidies. This means we have embraced mediocrity for more than five years and this means this administration failed the people.”
He said underspending ran a risk for the metro of facing cuts in grant allocations.
“Yearly, we are told the metro received clean audits from the auditor-general and yet there is nothing that shows when it comes to service delivery.”
The councillors called on Williams to deal with underspending.
“It is about time for the mayor to ensure that officials of these departments face the music.”
EFF Tshilidzi Tuwani said the city’s underspending caused concerns of underperformance.
“No one has ever faced consequences of underperformance or underspending. The South African Human Rights Commission reported that Tshwane is way behind on the formalisation of informal settlements. That is coupled with a lack of service delivery – when will this end?”
Tshwane finance MMC Mare-Lise Fourie said an amount of R1,152-billion grant for the 2020/21 financial year was allocated to the urban settlement upgrading partnership grant.
“This allocation is conditional to the funding of 117 projects in human settlements, roads and stormwater, electricity and water projects,” she said.
“The year-to-date 31 January 2021, receipt was R917,9-million and actual expenditure R460,8-million.
“The reasons for the delay in achieving predetermined milestones are tracked and monitored by the mayor monthly, and corrective steps are agreed to with responsible departments to get the projects back on track.”
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According to Fourie, the metro received grants and subsidies from both the national and provincial government for both operating and capital expenditure. These grants were paid in tranches throughout the year.
“The total budgeted allocation of operating grants and subsidies for 2020/21 financial is R5,395-billion.”
Meanwhile, EFF MoAfrika Mabopane also threatened to take the metro to the public protector should they fail to make public the beneficiaries of “R499-million” Covid-19-related expenditure.
“It is long overdue. We have been asking for the metro to publish the Covid-19 list. We will report the matter to the PP.”
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