DOCUMENTS

Mayor, share real state of finances of Joburg with residents – EFF Joburg

Fighters say DA has failed to improve finances of the city and have demonstrated a lack of financial acumen

EFF is calling on the Executive Mayor of Johannesburg Mpho Phalatse to bring the residence of the City into confidence about the real state of finances of Joburg

23 November 2022

The EFF Johannesburg caucus is calling on the Executive Mayor of the City of Johannesburg, Councillor Mpho Phalatse, to cut to the chase and to come clean, and be honest with the residents of this city and give them a comprehensive report which talks to the real state of financial affairs of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality We call on the DA led administration to confirm and/ deny the rumors that are spreading like wildfire that the financials of the city of Johannesburg are not in a good state.

The EFF has it on good authority that the DA led government has resorted to an unscrupulous behavior as part of its coverup from the fact that the City of Johannesburg Municipality's finances have hit rock bottom.

It is alleged that the Democratic Alliance has removed all reports with Financials which reveal a very dire situation concerning the city's coffers which clearly confirms that the City Johannesburg Municipality is broke.

We are of the view that the DA has failed to improve the finances of the city, they have demonstrated a lack of financial acumen and a lack of fundamental cash-flow understanding on revenue collection. The revenue collection is currently below 90% it is sitting at 86 5% for the last financial year, which puts the city on a red.

Poor revenue collection reduces cash-flow hence the city in about R4 billion in the red or short forms cash flow perspective. Currently, the city doesn't have cash-flow to pay for its service providers and very soon it Will not be able to pay salaries for its employees.

The DA's obsession to increase expenditure on legal fees and non-expenditure of conditional grants is not a solution but is in fact adding to the collapse of the financial situation of the city

The level of revenue collection through property rates in the city is shockingly poor and must be addressed urgently. In the meantime, the city must do a detailed diagnosis of the root-cause of poor revenue collection and come up with remedial actions to be implemented immediately The Member of the Mayoral Committee for finance '"no is also a member of the DA should have prevented this problem before it got to this stage, she should have put in place a comprehensive recovery plan, but she is sitting on her hands.

We are calling for an urgent appointment of an independent auditing firm to scrutinize the city's financial status and to investigate the possibilities that the revenue and property staff are possibly pocketing some funds such as private school's rebates and paying less on their rates. In addition to this investigation, the executive must table a report which details the amounts spent on legal services since mayor Phalatse took office.

The Executive Mayor Councillor Mpho Phalatse together With her subordinate, MMC for Finance, Councillor Julie Suddaby, should be held accountable for not disclosing on time the dire financial status of the City to the residence of the Johannesburg to council.

Their deliberate reluctance as well as their inability to comprehend the major financial challenges are a clear sign of poor governance.

Therefore, we are unapologetically calling on the Mayor to swiftly call a press briefing and bring the residence of Johannesburg into confidence about the real state of finance of the city, furthermore, we are demanding that the Mayor should give us the residence as well as the business community of Johannesburg a financially sound report that is detailed and comprehensive which seeks to address this dire situation, and that she must inform us when and how will she start to hit the ground running, in the same vein she has to set a dateline which has reasonable timelines.

We demand that the mayor should implement a turnaround strategy which will save this impasse, if she doesn't quickly address this situation, we cannot guarantee that tomorrow’s council meeting will go on as business as usual.

The EFF is the vanguard of the poor, and we remain unapologetic about our stances that we demand a smooth running and delivery of basic services for our people.

The provision of basic service deliver should not be compromised at any cost, starting from Ivory Park in Sub-region A, processing down south to Orange Farm in Sub-region G, we are calling on the Mayor to come clean and to provide solid answers as to what is actually happening with regards to the city's purse and that she should also confess and admit that she is overwhelmed by the ground work, she should stive to unite the city and openly ask for assistance, - for the sake of basic services, as the EFF we are willing and able to channel basic service delivery to our people.

Issued by Sepetlele Raseruthe, Regional Chairperson, EFF Joburg Region, 23 November 2022