“What about a people’s budget?”

Sir
The budget road show conducted by Endumeni municipality for wards 4 and 5 was attended only by chief financial officer, Mrs Mkhize.
Service delivery must be people-driven and people-centered thus we have a notion of a “people’s budget”. The critical question of drawing or formulating a people’s budget requires all managers to attend all budget road shows in order to obtain a clear mandate from all people.
Each department is expected to deliver on a mandate obtained from budget and Integrated Development Plan road shows. All senior officials must listen to the people through road shows and Operation Sukuma Sakhe, OSS.
They are paid lucrative benefits in order to deliver services of high standards and they must motivate the junior members of staff in order to deliver excellent services to consumers.
Expenditures of all departments must be informed by the desire to better the lives of the people, infrastructure development is a prerequisite of any developmental local government. Public money must not be spent on building empires of undemocratic officials at the expense of attending to the problems of the people.
We were promised that another budget hearing with a full complement of senior managers was on the cards. These are numerous issues that need to be raised before all senior managers of the council so that all matters of poverty, unemployment and squalour can be flagged i.e. highlighted.
Mzwakhe Sithebe: representative of the adhoc Endumeni Civic Association.