ActionSA supports the budget with concerns

14 June 2023

After a couple of postponements of both the State of the City Address (SOCA) and the Mid-Term Budget Presentation, ActionSA today supported the passing of the City of Johannesburg’s adjustments budget. According to the Speaker of the Council, “these postponements were necessitated by the political developments in the City”.

The “political developments” that the Speaker refers to, were caused by the ANC-EFF Coalition’s failure to provide the City of Johannesburg with a competent Executive Mayor, resulting in the forced resignation of Thapelo Amad. His successor, Kabelo Gwamanda, has been playing hide and seek with the residents of the City when asked to account for the serious allegations levelled against him.

ActionSA is conscious of the fact that this adjustments budget is presented against the backdrop of a fragile economic environment, the negative performance of the domestic economy and the constrained affordability by households.

We, therefore, welcome a lower rate of increase on property that is now reduced to 2% from the initial proposed increase of 5,3%.

We further welcome the initiatives proposed by the MMC of Finance of ensuring that this budget is well spent. These among others include establishing the strategic sourcing function to proactively study the market and provide insight into our process of acquiring goods and services at the correct value for money.

Having noted the technical evaluation of this budget that was led by the National Treasury that informed this budget presentation is credible and the revenue estimates are realistic, we make the following recommendations:

To arrest the Revenue losses which are incurred daily through losses in the distribution of electricity and water as well as theft through illegal connections of these services, the City decisively bring back #OperationBuyaMthetho.

That the City only hire competent contractors to maintain and repair ageing infrastructure as a way to avert further losses.

That the City fix the billing issues and ensure residents receive accurate bills and improve the ease of making payments. When queries do arise, the City must ensure they are dealt with efficiently.

That the City streamline revenue collection practices and processes to ensure that residents that can afford to pay for services can do so easily, safely and reliably. The City must also take a zero-tolerance approach to residents or businesses abusing and exploiting municipal services without paying their fair share.

We view it as a missed opportunity that the MMC of Finance said very little about how the City is going to reduce our reliance on the failing Eskom.

We are also concerned that, despite being the poorest of all our regions, Region G was not considered at all in this budget. Nothing was planned for Eldorado Park despite the Mayor and his team visiting the area during their protest in 2022. No plans at all for Ennerdale, Reverlea and Westbury, indeed this is very concerning for ActionSA.

We welcome the R135 million set aside to lease properties to accommodate the city’s staff while the metro centre building is being refurbished. At this point we would like to congratulate ActionSA’s Cllr Mpumi Edward for her persistence in running the story of the decay of the metro centre building, she put enough pressure and now the disaster that was looming can be averted.

Although we welcome the R75 million allocation for tools of trade for insourced security guards, we are disappointed but not surprised that the ANC-EFF Coalition is refusing to prioritise Phase 2 of the Insourcing of Security Guards and Cleaners.

ActionSA has now become the only hope for our people. We have become the only party that still demands that the city insource contracted security guards and cleaners. We will never stop until they are insourced, because we believe it’s the right thing to give dignity to these hard-working patriots.

Notwithstanding all of our concerns, we are called to prioritise our residents, and therefore ActionSA will not bite our nose to spite the face. Whilst we supported this budget, we will, without fail, continue holding this government accountable.

Issued by Funzi Ngobeni, ActionSA Caucus Leader, 14 June 2023