Mopani to repay R61m to Lepelle
The Mopani District Municipality (MDM) will settle R61 million of its historic debt with Lepelle Northern Water and the Department of Sanitation.
This was revealed during a special council sitting of MDM on Wednesday, May 31 to approve its budget for the coming year. Executive mayor, Pule Shayi, said it constitutes 2.8% of the municipality’s budget of R2.1 billion for the 2023/24 financial year. The decision was widely welcomed by opposition parties in the council. “I want to applaud the administration, at least it is taking us somewhere. The budget deals with the historic debt and the legal issues,” said Patrick Hlungwani of the Patriotic Alliance (PA).
Shayi said that it will be yet another difficult year, but the municipality was on a path to recovery having adopted a funded budget for the first time in many years. “In our budget speech last year, we spoke of the urgent need to start to live within our means. The cost of living is too high. With the ongoing efforts to recover from the negative effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, our people are further badly affected by unstable electricity supply.
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The recent increase in the repo rate will not make things any easier for our people. But we all have to swiftly adapt to this environment,” Shayi said. Shayi said R1.8 billion will be from transfers and subsidies. They are projecting an amount of R287m from water revenue and R26m from sanitation revenue. “All municipalities have a basic tariff increase of 5.3% and 2023/24 projections are based on these tariffs in consultation with communities,” he added.
The breakdown from the transfer and subsidy income is R1.2 billion from equitable shares, R548m from Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG), R8.7m from EPWP, R3m from Financial Management Grant, and R2.3m from the Rural Roads Asset Management Grant. The Democratic Alliance (DA) rejected the budget saying that it did not address the maintenance of infrastructure.
“There is no plan to energise the many redundant boreholes in the district. What they have resolved to do is increase the number of private water tankers, mostly owned by ANC cadres, who milk the municipality dry monthly,” said Lebbeus Ramalepe of the DA. “We also call on the municipality to return the water service’s infrastructure back to local municipalities as the district is failing to maintain water and sewer plants,” said Ramalepe.
