WATCH: Joburg mayor aims to take the city forward
He revealed that in the Emergency Management Services department, the City currently has five fire engines to service 5-million residents of Johannesburg.
After two months in office, Johannesburg executive mayor Clr Geoffery Makhubo outlined his intentions to take the City forward in a media briefing at Johannesburg Metro Centre on February 19.
He mentioned that the City has experienced a three-year setback under the DA-led coalition government who claimed easy victories.
The mayor said he spent the last month on a roadshow, visiting the various departments and entities of the City to assess performance.
“Today, I can safely say that the claim by my predecessor and his party that ‘where we govern, we govern better’ is definitely not true and a farce in the City of Johannesburg.
“We can confirm with certainty that the DA-led administration in the City of Johannesburg has brought the City to near financial collapse and created an environment where maladministration bordering on fraud and corruption has thrived,” said Makhubo.
Makhubo revealed that at the time of the briefing he had left the City’s Budget Lekgotla that is currently underway to consider the adjustment budget and discussing the 2020/21 budget principles and priorities of the new Government of Local Unity (GLU).
He said these include good governance, financial sustainability, integrated human settlements, job creation, sustainable environmental development and a safer city, among others.
He blames the City’s state that was in a blink of collapse to populist policies and decision making that has rendered the City dysfunctional in many critical areas of service delivery.
He said the purpose of the briefing was to specifically focus on key and immediate threats, particularly in the emergency services, Johannesburg Metro Police and on the insourcing of security officers in the city.
He revealed that in the Emergency Management Services department, the City currently has five fire engines to service 5-million residents of Johannesburg.
He said this is despite an amount of R172-million having been paid upfront to a service provider, in contravention of the Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA), for the delivery of fire engines.
“To make matters worse, the specifications upon which this corrupt procurement was made do not meet the operational requirements of the EMS. To date, not a single fire engine has been delivered to the City.
“The 19 auxiliary services vehicles delivered do not meet the specifications of the EMS and are currently being retrofitted, at an additional and unbudgeted cost of R48-million, to suit the requirements of EMS,” said Makhubo.
He acknowledged that insourcing was a council resolution taken in January 2018 to insource security officers.
However, as the GLU, they have found some serious irregularities in the process of insourcing.
He also assured Joburg residents that corruption and maladministration will not go unpunished.
“We have acted against two senior officials who are on suspension, pending a disciplinary process,” he said.
