Joburg mayor to get big pay rise while the city cuts back services – Mashaba

Johannesburg mayor Geoff Makhubo is planning on giving himself a R106,000 pay rise, while the city itself is planning on substantial cuts to its basic services.

This is according to the city’s former mayor, Herman Mashaba, who vocalised his outrage in a series of tweets on Tuesday morning: “Budget cuts will impact the electricity, road, water and sewer networks, while Makhubo himself gets a RAISE!”

The mayor’s salary comes to R1,45 million according to the proposed budget. You can read the full budget proposal by clicking here.

It appears, according to Mashaba, that mayor’s proposed pay rise is in fact even above the official limit.

“The budget proposes increases in salaries for the mayor and chief whip which are above the maximum remuneration limits set for these office-bearers set by COGTA!

Here is a list of some of the city’s proposed cutbacks, according to the former mayor:

• City Power budget cut from R1.021 billion to R738 million.
• Department of transport budget reduced from R1 billion to R683 million.
• Electrification of informal settlements reduced from R250 million to R98 million.
• Installation of new public lighting to go down from R50 million to R30 million.
• Sandton/Alexandra: Planned replacement of water mains, cut from R100 million over two years to R20 million.
• Diepkloof Hostel renewal, to be reduced from R40 million to R16 million in 2020/21.
• Midrand: Planned replacement of water mains, scaled back from R70 million over two years to R5 million.
• Roodepoort/Diepsloot: water mains replacement reduced from R90 million over two years to R5 million.

Currently, more than a week after the budget of the City of Joburg was supposed to be used for service delivery and other programmes, it has not been passed.

In terms of the Municipal Finance Management Act of 2003 (MFMA), a council must approve an annual budget for a municipality before the start of its financial year on 1 July. The budget was not voted for or approved in the council, which has yet to sit.

Now the Gauteng executive council (Exco) has taken a decision to intervene in terms of section 139 of the constitution.

The provincial administration has not applied the harsher section of immediately appointing an administrator to run the affairs of the council. Instead, it opted to give the council until Friday.

In a statement, Makhubo accepted the directives to convene an urgent meeting to approve the budget. He said the city would endeavour to satisfy its obligations and was confident the budget would be passed when the council convened on Thursday.

A spokesperson for Makhubo’s office could not be reached for comment at the time of writing.

For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.