Cape Town - The City of Cape Town will be tabling its budget adjustment at the end of the month at a full council meeting.
Currently, the City is mum over how much money would be shifted or where it would go. Its R50 billion budget for the 2019/20 financial year was focused towards improving safety, urban renewal and human settlements. The operating budget expenditure was set at R41.8bn and the capital budget at R8.3bn.
Deputy mayor and mayco member for finance Ian Neilson said: “The City’s budget and implementation plans are reviewed on a continual basis and progress is reported monthly. In-year amendments are effected via mechanisms such as intra-directorate budget shifts and formal processes such as adjustments budgets, of which the next occasion will be the January 2020 Adjustments Budget to Council at the end of the month.
“The City’s next three-year budget will be tabled at council by the mayor at the end of March and it will undergo an extensive public participation process as always.”
When tabling the budget last year, the council announced that it would spend over R2.7bn over the next three years on informal
housing settlement upgrades.
More than R2.9bn was meant to be spent on transport upgrades, with the City placing emphasis on improving public transport, and about R535m was earmarked for safety and security.
Researcher at the Social Justice Coalition (SJC) Dalli Weyers said that in its 2019/2020 budget the City planned to spend only R25m on the installation of full-flush toilets in the more than 400 informal settlements across Cape Town.
“We demand that the City not cut the money allocated to the installation of full-flush toilets in informal settlements this year. Another cut this year will only further illustrate why the SJC is in the Equality Court demanding a reasonable and non-discriminatory sanitation plan from the City.
“In its 2019/20 budget the City also allocated R7m for public lighting for the entirety of Area East, of which Khayelitsha is a part,” Weyers said.
STOPCoct founder Sandra Dickson said she expected that the adjustment budget might be heavily loaded to make more money available to the Safety and Security Directorate.
“The directorate has become the sole focus of the City of Cape Town in the past few years. In my opinion, the City should rather allocate money to provide better services for all that live in Cape Town.”
@MarvinCharles17