The tabling of this year’s municipal budget had to be postponed and held online after the police tear-gassed protesters outside Tshwane House and the EFF disrupted proceedings inside, allegedly making death threats to DA members in the process.
While the municipality believed that its tabled R44.9-billion budget would improve service delivery, opposition parties don’t agree.
Finance MMC Peter Sutton, who delivered the budget, said the budget’s main focus was core services such as maintaining streetlights, patching potholes, fixing water leaks and so on.
The total budget of R44.9-billion consists of an operating budget of R42.1-billion and a capital infrastructure investment budget of R2.8-billion.
Sutton said service delivery was not at the level where the metro would have liked it to be.
“We noticed a great deal of service delivery discontent via our social media platforms,” he said.
The budget was passed by 108 votes by the coalition government while the biggest opposition parties, the EFF and the ANC, abandoned the virtual meeting questioning its “legality”.
Their councillors claimed that while virtual meetings were allowed during the Covid-19 disaster management act, it was not allowed after the act.
ANC chairperson Kgoši Maepa said the councillors could not debate in an “illegal” meeting but would discuss some service delivery points they wanted to be prioritised in the budget with Sutton.
The EFF’s Obakeng Ramabodu was also unhappy about the virtual budget debate.
“I had to WhatsApp speaker Murunwa Makwarela for a point of order, which is not acceptable.”
Councillors from both parties did not participate in the debate.
Meanwhile, other opposition parties in council during the debate voiced their unhappiness about service delivery in the region. Water contamination in parts of Bronkhorspruit came under the spotlight.
Republican Conference councillor Lex Middelberg had a bottle of brown water he said was taken from a tap in Zithobeni.
“The person who gave this to me spent a week in hospital with a severe bacterial intestine infection, diarrhoea, and dehydration,” he said.
“Upon her release, the doctor warned her not to use municipal water but MMC Daryl Johnston reckons that the water is safe.”
Middelberg said the budget was “flawed on a fundamental level”.
“There is nothing here that will empower the TMPD to stop electricity theft,” he said.
According to him, 32% of electricity was unaccounted for annually.
ACDP councillor Ronald Morake said he was happy with the R10-million allocated to the cable theft unit.
“This will address the more than R400-million cable theft cost we incur every year,” he said.
Morake said “our very own officials” were involved in “the syndicate of illegal connections”.
The R700-million collected by the revenue collection campaign was not enough to recoup the R17-billion owed to the municipality.
“This is not a banana republic. The embassies and the government ministries must pay for rates because they have a budget to pay for this.”
Another coalition partner, IFP councillor Ziyanda Zwane, said the state of hostels in the region was not good.
“The people in these marginalised and impoverished communities also belong to the municipality and deserve efficient and sustainable human settlements.”
Patriotic Alliance councillor Debyre Williams-Moses said huge amounts were spent to refurbish “certain areas” and none allocated to areas such as Eersterust for development.
“Our communities are experiencing water disruptions because of burst pipes and outdated infrastructure that have not been properly repaired for over decades. The residents are experiencing the ripple effect of the municipality’s neglect now,” Williams-Moses said.
Williams-Moses said there was a lack of visibility of TMPD and police in communities, adding that, “this leads to the increase of cable theft”.
“We do not support and agree with the budget as it is not all-inclusive,” she said.
Coalition partner ActionSA said although the party supported the budget, the councillors were worried about the metro’s failure to insource all security officers and cleaners.
ALSO READ:DA threatens criminal charges against EFF after disrupted Tshwane budget speech meeting
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