Councillors are concerned of GMM financial state
Fikile Magagamela, the council speaker, appealed to the councillors whose accounts are in arrears to settle these to avoid not getting their upper-limit allowance.
Councillors raised concerns about the Govan Mbeki Municipality’s financial state.
This comes after the mayor, Nhlakanipho Zuma, said during the council meeting on February 28 that the municipality is in distress.
The Freedom Front Plus councillor, Aranda Buitendag-Nel, said councillors should lead by example. They should not be in arrears on their consumer accounts, because this contributes to the poor financial state.
“Many councillors owe the municipality more than R100 000 each, while some do not even bother to pay their rates and taxes, but we keep on blaming our community.
“Let us begin by keeping our house in order before we can start pointing fingers,” said Buidendag-Nel.
John Mahlangu, the Azanian Residents Party (ARP) president and councillor, said the Azania informal settlement in eMbalenhle Ext 22 is using water without paying for it, while the municipality owes Rand Water millions.
“In Azania, there are no water meters and residents are using water for free because this municipality doesn’t care,” said Mahlangu.
The Economic Freedom Fighters councillor, Daniel Khoza, said according to the law that governs the municipalities, the staff members and councillors of the municipality shall not be in arrears with their municipal service accounts for more than three months.
“According to Section 10 of the Municipal Systems Act, the municipality may deduct the outstanding amount from staff members or councillors after three months.
“We want to know from the chief financial officer how far are they with the deductions from the salaries of staff and councillors,” asked Khoza.
The Democratic Alliance councillor, Tebogo Sekaledi, asked the mayor how a high financial projection for five years could have been done and now the council is told to scale down the budget.
“What are the motivative steps we need to take to recuperate funds that were budgeted in the original budget?
“How are we going to turn the situation around because we are not getting that money for which we budgeted? It is clear that a lot of services will not be funded. We need a clear turnaround strategy report,” said Sekaledi.
Zuma responded by saying the first thing that the council should remember is that the municipality is dysfunctional. He encouraged members of the council to look for money that is owed to the municipality.
He agreed with Mahlangu that there are no water meters in the Azania informal settlement because it was established by him (Mahlangu), not the municipality.
ALSO READ: WATCH: Nehawu demands court officials in Evander to join the strike
The municipality’s chief financial officer, Morufo Moloto, responded on the issue of staff owing the municipality rates taxes that employees are coming forward to sign their monthly deductions forms on their salaries.
“The tricky part is that employees cannot be forced to sign a deduction form. We cannot tamper with their salaries without consent.
“There are also councillors who are making arrangements while there are those who are forfeiting their upper-limit money because they owe the municipality,” said Moloto.
Fikile Magagamela, the council speaker, appealed to the councillors whose accounts are in arrears to settle these to avoid not getting their upper-limit allowance.
Magagamela said that upper-limit money, supposed to be paid to some councillors who are in debt with the municipality, is in a suspense or trash account waiting to be cleared.
