BCM Mayor guilty of Fruitless and Wasteful Expenditure

Jacob Zuma has rightfully received much criticism for calling on CEO's and other executives to freeze their salary increases and not take bonuses, at the same time as he is spending a reported R240mil of taxpayer’s money on upgrades to his private home!

It seems that this hypocritical political attitude is also present in Buffalo City Metro, where the Mayor and three councillors spent R253,844.00 on business class airfare to attend a function in Germany. If you break the cost down, the airfare was R63,461.00 each, more than three times more than the economy class rate of R17,842! An additional R63,000.00 was spent on a week’s hotel accommodation. It is my opinion that the council did not even need to be represented and provided no value to the delegation as the Province, ELIDZ, and the ECDC had already sent people to represent our area. I called on this issue to be investigated by the Fruitless and Wasteful Expenditure Committee in a full sitting of council, however was overruled by the governing party councillors.

Madam Mayor, how can you possibly claim to the citizens of Buffalo City that the council cannot afford to fix our roads, water and electricity networks, if you yourself are spending such large amounts on needless luxuries? I won’t even go into the details of the costs of renting the luxury Mercedes-Benz SUV you are chauffeured around town in. Just because the mayoral handbook makes allowances for these luxuries, it does not mean that it is ethically correct to take full advantage of them.

It is time that politicians in Buffalo City wake up and start tightening their own belts. before they once again claim that we cannot afford to fill potholes or keep the city clean. Service delivery might also be improved if our jet-setting mayor spent more time in her office and not overseas.

Voters remember – you get the government you vote for.