The DA in the metro recently released a statement, in which they express their feelings towards the metro’s continued failure to spend its meagre capital budget.
“The metro routinely fails to allocate a large enough portion of the budget to capital expenditure and, when the little it does allocate is not spent, the consequences are visible for all to see: unusable roads, perpetual sewer overflow and uncontrollable water leaks and losses,” said Ramesh Sheodin, a member of the finance oversight committee.
In a speech delivered at the January council meeting Sheodin brought to the council’s attention that, in the first half of the current financial year, less than 20 per cent of the capital budget was spent.
This is almost half the figure at the same point last year, when only 33 per cent of the budget had been spent.
The worst performing department is roads, which has spent only 8,9 per cent of its budget.
“This explains why residents from Alberton to Kempton Park to Springs are crying foul over the state of the roads, and businesses which use trucks to transport goods are being negatively impacted,” said Sheodin.
Meanwhile, residents are left to deal with the deteriorating roads.
“Residents do not care if it is capital or operating budgets that are being poorly spent,” Sheodin added.
“They see only the results and councillors are being personally attacked on the state of roads, water supply, proper sanitation and interrupted power supply.”
The DA demanded that both finance MMC Moses Makwakwa and the Mayor, Mondli Gungubele, crack the whip when it comes to departments which are under-spending on their budgets, before service delivery reaches the point of no return.
