Budget aims to close the gap between rich and poor

ETHEKWINI Municipality plans to step up efforts to bridge the gap between the rich and poor by creating sustainable economic growth and development opportunities for the youth and women and ensuring food security.

This was the outcome of last week's 2016/17 Budget speech delivered by Mayor James Nxumalo.

Nxumalo also outlined the plans for the City going forward including the catalytic projects that will transform the City’s landscape and promote future growth and development. He said the budget had grown from R31.7 billion in 2011 to R41.6 billion this year. The City’s capital budget had grown from R5.3 billion to R6.7 billion. Coupled with this achievement, the City has over R6 billion in terms of cash-on-hand.

Nxumalo said the City’s budget was a strategic response to the economic climate but also represented the views of residents, business and other stakeholders and included the development needs of the new areas to be incorporated into eThekwini Municipality’s boundaries.

Nxumalo said targets for the next three years, among others, included building 15 500 houses, providing 12 538 serviced sites, providing 1090 gap market housing opportunities, upgrading 1 400 pre-1994 housing stock, installing 37 500 water connections including newly incorporated areas, installing 24 000 sewer connections, providing 10 500 rural sanitation, providing 90 000 electricity connections, upgrading 174 clinics, creating 90 000 Expanded Public Works Programme opportunities, converting 38km of gravel to black-top and construction of four fire stations.

He said the 2016/17 consolidated budget of R41.6 billion supported government’s commitment to broadening service delivery, attracting investors and expanding infrastructure.

According to Nxumalo, the operating budget, which funds the continued provision of services provided by the Municipality, increased from R30.1 billion in 2.14/15 to R33.1 billion in 2015/16. This amount will increase to R34.9 billion for the 2016/17 financial year..

A total of R100-million has been set aside for youth programmes. More than 1 500 kilometres of fibre optic cables had been laid, and free WiFi was available at all municipal libraries. He said the City hoped to launch free WiFi in all the major townships, rural areas and areas around universities or where there is a high concentration of students by the end of June.

Tariff increases

Tariff increases, according to Nxumalo, reflect the current economic climate, increase bulk purchases cross subsidisation, slow growth percentages and the decrease in consumption of water and electricity.

He said the rates increase was in line with inflation while the increase to the water tariff was linked to the increase in the Umgeni water tariff increase of 11.2 per cent. The increase in electricity was due to an increase of 7.86 per cent by the National Energy Regulator of South Africa. The tariff for sanitation was linked to the increase in costs of bulk water purchase.

The main tariff increases for the 2016/17 financial year are 6.9 per cent for assessment rates, 12.5 per cent for residential water, 15.9 per cent for business water, 7.64 per cent for electricity charges, 9.9 per cent for sanitation and 7.9 per cent for refuse removal.

Martin Meyer comments

Commenting on the budget in council, ward 27 councillor, Martin Meyer said, in his opinion eThekwini deserved better than what the budget offered.

“EThekwini deserves a transport system that runs on time, and that runs! I fail to understand how we can budget for Durban transport if we haven’t heard from the task team yet, and if we don’t even know what the true current state of affairs are. The people of eThekwini deserve better than to live in a city that is dirty, polluted, and with no clear plan ahead,” he said.

Meyer said he felt eThekwini deserved better than to be paralysed by crime, and that the municipality should not be approving a budget if it had not had sight of the Metro Police budget.

“The Metro Police officers who diligently serve this city, deserve better than to be stretched to the limit because we have failed them by not recruiting, training and employing any new police men and women since 2009! They deserve better than to have to struggle with equipment, protective gear and weapons due to gross mismanagement of the stores and procurement. The people of eThekwini deserve better than being served by a Metro Police force that is understaffed, poorly equipped and demoralised due to the perceived antics of i’s suspended-then-not-suspended head,” said Meyer.

Meyer said a municipality should address the problems of the city, so that each and every resident was guaranteed the clean, safe and well run city they deserved.