At the end of June the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality council approved it's proposed 2011/2012 budget of over R4,4 billion. It's no secret that the BCMM DA caucus voted against this budget, and I'd like to explain exactly why we took this stance. The full DA position drafted by caucus leader Cllr Kobus Botha is an 18 page document, so I will summarise some key points.
It must first be noted that this budget was approved at a time when the disappearance/unaccountability of over R2 billion rand from this city’s coffers earmarked for much needed service delivery projects is being investigated. Council is still in the process of releasing this report compiled by Ernst and Young. It must also be noted that the public hearings time-line process as planned time frames was not met by the previous council. The rushed four day “public participation” road show was held with taxpayers money at a budgeted amount of R855,000.00. Quit a costly exercise for four days. Many remarked that this expenditure doesn’t warrant the effort and the quality of planning from the public participation unit was poor. The final draft was also only delivered to councillors two days before the meeting, which is not enough time to properly unpack and access this important data.
Thirty good reasons why not to support the BCMM 2011/12 IDP & Budget:
1.There is no short-term budget austerity
2. The 80:20 budget principal application allocation not used
3. Salary, wages is 25%, General expenses is 18%. Total to bureaucracy is 43%, too high
4. Wage increases for municipal staff exceeds consumer inflation (CPI) of 4,2 for April
5. Increase in staff absenteeism and staff unproductively
6. Huge revenue losses due to bad revenue management
7. Increased levels of debt and poor debt collection rate - under the NT of 97% target
8. Debtors book at May 2011 – Over R 808 million, grew by 21%, R 7,2 million rand pm
9. No significant visible beautification of city
10. The budget is encouraging massive state dependency and welfare-ism
11. The rates and tariff increases are simply unaffordable to many residents
12. Lack of filling vacant positions – CFO and other key posts within reasonable frames
13. No need to have a Council Chief Whip position costing us R 360 thousand rand pa
14. Virtually no improvement in regards to city cleanliness
- Bad transportation road surfaces – city wide potholes and surface disintegration
- The budgeted maintenance & repairs allocation is to little
- Solid Waste removal department is operating at a deficit - costing the city money
- Increased welfare-ism and state dependence - public works programmes
- Huge backlogs in various service delivery promises by the ruling party
- Under spending of capital grants due to Supply Chain Management failures
- There is a reduction in cash reserves and this poses a serious strategic risk
- Failure to produce clean Audit reports - Provincial Auditor General - Disclaimer
- 28 June 2011 - Latest Shocking Quarterly Internal Audit Report tabled
- Explosive Ernest & Young Report – R 2 Billion unaccounted for at a forensic investigation and report cost to the city amounting to R 2 million rand to conduct and still under veil of secrecy by ANC senior members
- Endemic corruption within the institution – lack of fraud prevention plans
- Excessive plant, material, property and equipment losses due to theft
- Serious loss of municipal property through staff negligence
- To many municipal assets that is unprotected and vulnerable to risk of organized crime syndicates (Large scale asset stripping)
- The IDP & Budget does not contribute to simplifying the way we operate
- The IDP & Budget public participation process was of poor quality
To summarise, all of the above indicates serious institution functional decay.
We believe that the following alternative mechanisms of service delivery should be considered:
1. Outsource the solid waste management entirely; 2.Outsource the entire municipal fleet and its maintenance; 3. Implement municipal service districts (adopted a by-law to allow for this); 4. Others might potentially welcome the opportunity to assume responsibility for their own local basic service delivery needs.
The budget was ultimately approved against our opinion and the DA caucus will endeavour to see that the citizens of BCMM get the best value for their money.
For full budget opinion documents, please email lancew@webmail.co.za
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