The Ekurhuleni Metro is crowing about receiving the highest investment upgrade rating from Moody’s Investment Services. Great.
However, it would be interesting to know if the latter only considers the financial situation when allocating ratings.
Are numerous other factors such as wasteful expenditure, bloated employment, fraud and poor service delivery included in the audit?
City manager Khaya Ngema informs us of the metro’s “prudent financial management”.
So how come there are billions outstanding in uncollected fees, which are regularly written off, surprisingly just before an election?
The answer to the above is obviously found in the annual budget – every year the ratepayer (paying ones) is burdened with increases way above the official inflation rate.
Any organisation (monopolistic ones) would be in a sound financial position if it could increase prices with no backlash from customers!
Oh yes, clean audits! To many this sounds fantastic. Here’s the question, has the whole metro received a clean audit or merely a few selective departments within the metro?
I think the latter. The dodgy awarding of tenders and millions “lost” in waste and fraud surely cannot result in a clean audit.
So based on financial numbers the metro will invariably get investment ratings. Just milk the ratepayers for the funds needed to more than cover costs (and waste).
What’s the plan when the huge industrial base starts saying enough is enough and that we are moving!
