DUNDEE KZN: Endumeni’s financial woes worsen
Mayor Mdluli admitted at Friday's virtual meeting and at the residents' public meeting in the Moth Hall on Thursday that the municipality is facing financial struggles.
Endumeni’s finances are in dire straits and there is a scramble to keep ‘the municipal ship afloat’. That was the typically blunt warning from Mayor Sduduzo Mdluli at the passing of the 2021/22 Municipal Budget.
For the first time ever, Endumeni’s budget broke through the R400-million mark. But this year, a deficit of over R10 million has been budgeted for, out of an expected expenditure of R408 million. The municipality is only projected to recoup R398 million. Mayor Mdluli admitted at Friday’s virtual meeting and at the residents’ public meeting in the Moth Hall on Thursday that the municipality is facing financial struggles.
This can be ascribed to continued electricity theft, running at over R20 million a year; a mushrooming of the population (said to be around 76,000 due to an influx from the rural areas); poor revenue collection levels; high unemployment; limited resources and an aging municipal infrastructure; lack of proper management of land reform of previously productive farms that has resulted in ‘people farming’; and vandalism of municipal infrastructure.
of all this, residents can expect a 5% increase in property rates from July 1, along with a 5% hike in the refuse removal tariff, while electricity is expected to go up by a whopping 14.5% due to Eskom’s troubles. Both the DA and IFP called for ‘trimming of the expenditure fat to give residents a 3% rates increase’. Both the DA and IFP called for ‘trimming of the expenditure fat to give residents a 3% rates increase’. Callie Carelse of the IFP said residents had ‘suffered greatly under the Covid-19-prompted lockdown and with many on the poverty line, more relief is needed’.
He was backed by Anthon Raubenheimer, who said that ‘while the budget may have been scientifically formulated, as described by the mayor, officials needed to go back and find savings by curbing expenditure’. “The sale of municipal houses has been delayed and if this goes through, we could recoup over R8 million for the coffers, which would be a great relief.”
For more details see the latest Courier out on June 3, 2021
HAVE YOUR SAY: Like our Facebook page, follow us on Twitter and Instagram or email us at dundee.courier@caxton.co.za. Add us on WhatsApp 071 277 1394.
