Kgotso Khumalo, the J.B. Marks executive mayor has rubbished the reports detailing that the municipality is bankrupt and without a single cent in the coffers.
In explaining the financial status of the municipality, the chief financial officer, Tumisang Moeketsane told the media at Tuesday’s briefing that when they closed the books for the 2016/2017 financial year, the municipality had R130 million in terms of cash investments.
She added that at the end of the 2017/2018 financial year in June, ‘we had R142 million short-term investments and R60 million of long-term investments. In other words, the municipality had about R232 million cash-backed reserves in our coffers as of 30 June this year. That is money that we can go to the bank and cash immediately,’ she said.
The CFO further explained that checking the annual financial statements for last year and the one being compiled right now, the municipality is still liquid.
‘In terms of the creditors that must be paid, most of them have been serviced. ‘We have instances where creditors are complaining that they have not been paid but when you check in the system, they have not followed the supply chain processes,’ she said.
Moeketsane assured that the municipality is on time in terms of servicing its creditors, paying the water bill and the Eskom electricity account. ‘We pay within the 30-day period as legislated by the municipal finance management act,’ she concluded.
Khumalo painted a positive picture of the municipality’s outlook. ‘We may be facing challenges like any other municipality in the country but, as a municipality, we pride ourselves in continuing to collect above 80 per cent of rates and taxes and utilities compared to many. We are not in dire straits financially. We pay our service providers on time, we pay our employees their salaries on time and we will continue to investigate those invoices and projects that seem to be dodgy and continue to provide unending services to our municipality,’ he said.
