Ratepayers will face significant increases in rates, refuse removal and electricity tariffs from July.
KwaDukuza municipality (KDM) passed its budget on Monday, after failing to get it passed by council last Wednesday.
After months of public participation events, KDM was legally mandated to conclude the budget process for the 2022/2023 year, which begins in July.
The delay of budget approval last week was due to absent councillors, including potential swing voters from the single seat parties.
It was the first time in KDM’s history that the budget had not passed at first submission.
The main opposition parties, the Democratic Alliance (DA), ActionSA, Independent Alliance (IA), Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) were united in their rejection of the budget, but for different reasons.
Most objections were over the increases, including a 5% rates hike, 6% refuse increase and an average electricity increase of 7.4%.
“We wanted to see a zero percent increase in property rates, a rebate for consumers in good standing, a reduction of refuse increase and more funding to be allocated towards infrastructure,” said DA caucus leader, Tammy Colley.
ActionSA caucus leader, Nel Sewraj, said the budget was not fair on consumers who are already dealing with the steep cost of living increases.
“The budget is grossly inconsistent with the service delivery needs of the community. It does not indicate how the municipality will spend an increased capital budget allocation of R510-million when the previous financial year indicated a failure to spend the outstanding R123-million. Furthermore, the municipality has discontinued the supply of refuse removal bags, yet is imposing an increase of 6% on residents for waste removal,” he said.
Caucus leaders from the IA, EFF and IFP cited the increase in electricity costs as the main problem.
Opposition parties had hoped the delay would give them leverage to negotiate changes to the budget, but none came to pass by the time the budget was retabled on Monday.
An almost full house sat in the special council meeting where the budget was passed by 32 votes to 24.
Joining the 29 African National Congress (ANC) councillors were the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP), African Independent Congress (AIC) and African Transformation Movement (ATM).
The DA, ActionSA, IA, EFF and IFP all again voted against.
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During the meeting, KDM mayor Lindi Nhaca, responded to claims of unfairness from the opposition.
“All parties that rejected the budget raised one common issue regarding the increase of electricity tariffs. This comes from a lack of understanding of how electricity charges work. The tariffs are within acceptable guidelines and one must take into account the cost of supplying this service to the municipality,” she said.
Nhaca further referred to increases of rates and tariffs in other municipalities which were higher than KDM’s.
She said increases were necessary for council to implement improved infrastructure measures which had previously been called for by the opposition.
Nhaca noted submissions on the budget from community and civic organisations, including the iLembe Chamber of Commerce, Dolphin Coast Residents and Ratepayers Association (Docrra) and the KwaDukuza Residents Forum (KDRF).
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Both the Chamber and KDRF expressed dissatisfaction with the public participation process.
“While we are fully aware that the Municipal Systems Act intends for these meetings to be opportunities to enhance public participation on the IDP and budget, we found that these Imbizos constituted little more than one-way information dumps,” reads the letter from KDRF.
iLembe Chamber CEO, Cobus Oelofse, said: “KDM’s disregard and ignorance of the aims of public participation process, specifically in relation to the creation of a shared understanding, alignment and minimum requirements, is of significant concern. Despite ongoing and regular submissions to the municipal manager and others, no acknowledgement of such submissions, responses to the issues raised or engagements on these issues ever materialised.”
In her speech, mayor Nhaca promised to still respond to each submission.
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