On Friday, May 27 the City of Johannesburg (CoJ) adopted a report by the Mayoral Committee to strengthen the fight against corruption and the theft of City resources by renaming and reconstituting the Disciplinary Board as the Financial Misconduct Board (FMB).
This follows after the Johannesburg multi-party government was motivated by the decision of Council.
According to a statement released by the CoJ this deliberate action recognises the shortcomings of the now former Disciplinary Board to fight and eradicate nefarious acts by City officials, and eliminates the confusion between the FMB and other disciplinary structures within the City.
“The new structure will strengthen our fight against corruption as the new structure delegates certain powers to the Executive Mayor, the Mayoral Committee, and the City Manger in order to improve the implementation and functionality of the Board. The delegated authority of the Executive Mayor and Mayoral Committee will enable them to appoint members of the FMB,” Mabine Seabe, Director of Mayoral Communication said.
“In order to ensure its independence, at least three of the five members of the FMB will be external appointments. The appointment process will be an open one, where adverts will go out for the public to apply. This is similar to the appointment process of members of other advisory committees, for example the Group Audit Committee.”
At Friday’s Council sitting, the multi-party government also confidently passed its R77 billion 2022/23 Budget for the City and its residents.
Mabine went on to explain that the budget is practical, inclusive, yet generous where it matters most to more than six million residents.
Its focus is on establishing a foundation upon which the CoJ can build the city of golden opportunities. This means focusing on what is broken; hence, the budget is called the Golden Repair.
“In order to sustain economic activity and protect livelihoods, City Power had been allocated a capital budget of R1,2 billion to refurbish and upgrade the city’s energy infrastructure. This follows from the Joburg Energy Indaba, where we committed to making sure our infrastructure can support the on-boarding of independent power producers (IPPs),” Mabine explained in the statement.
Equally, Joburg Water has been allocated a capital budget of R795 million to maintain its infrastructure.
The Golden Repair budget is about rebuilding the city and ensuring that residents get value for their money and benefit from service delivery programmes.
This is how the funds were allocated:
• 122 kilometres of lane roads to be resurfaced
• 15 kilometres of gravel roads to be upgraded to surface roads
• 1 000 public lights to be installed
• R500 million for improved waste management
• R200 million for the 20 new fire engines and associated equipment
• R1,3 million to recruit and train 150 park rangers to keep open spaces safe
• 1 200 by-law enforcement operations and 6 400 traffic enforcement operations
• R21,5 million to implement the eHealth programme to digitise medical records at the city’s clinics
• R10 million to upgrade Inner City informal trading stalls
• R35 million to guarantee free Wi-Fi at the City’s libraries
• R1,9 billion operating budget for housing projects across the city
• R15 million to further upgrade the JMPD Integrated Intelligence Operating Centre (IIOC)
• R1,7 billion over three years for housing and housing opportunities
• Opex of R1,8 billion for Health and Social Development programmes
These are but a few of the projects the multi-party government will roll out over the next financial year.
“We will also be reviewing all our unfunded mandates to ensure that the City is devoting resources to its core mandates and infrastructure upgrades. Where we are spending money on national and provincial competencies, we will be requesting the necessary funding from National Treasury,” he concluded.
“The multi-party government is committed to working with and for all residents to restore Joburg’s golden shine.”
