The new head of the City of Johannesburg’s Finance Department, Dr Rabelani Dagada, is a family man with big plans for the department that looks after all the City’s funds.
The department is responsible for collecting rates and taxes, making sure that money is efficiently managed in the City and presenting a budget every year.
“Finance cuts across all the departments. Everything involving money needs to be approved,” Dagada said. But the approval guidelines are based on the City’s Integrated Development Plan, and the development needs of the municipality.
Dagada said that the City needs to ‘trim fat’ in terms of the City’s expenditure. A study will be conducted on how the municipality can reduce operational expenditure and spend more on capital expenditure.
With his academic and corporate success, Dagada said he refuses to fail. “I have never failed before, and I do not intend on failing soon.”
Within three weeks of being appointed, he decided on what needed to be achieved in the department in his first 100 days. “I am personally monitoring that.”
The 45-year-old husband and father of four was born in Alexandra and grew up in Venda, Limpopo. He is an acclaimed academic, author and development economist. He holds a master’s degrees from both the University of Johannesburg and Witwatersrand and a PhD in Information Systems from the University of South Africa. Dagada has extensive experience in the fields of telecommunications, information technology and education, and serves on the board of a number of non-profit organisations.
“I never thought I would be a politician – I am actually a reluctant politician. With everything happening in the country, I thought I needed to make myself available. But if things were instead going very well, I would be teaching,” he said.
Dagada admitted that it is very difficult to be an academic and politician at the same time. “My life changed in many ways. I used to have a very old Blackberry, I have since had to upgrade. And I now own three suits, instead of just one,” he laughed.
