THE City’s proposed annual budget for the 2021/22 financial year, tabled at a special council meeting on Wednesday, has been slammed for alleged “acute contradictions”.
The annual budget of R56.6 billion, which amounts to R8.3bn for the capital budget and R48.3bn for the operating budget, was tabled to council by mayor Dan Plato yesterday.
The budget will see a 4.5% average increase for rates, 5% increase for water and sanitation, and 3.5% for refuse removal. Additionally, electricity tariff will be increased by 13.,48%, with residents being spared the full increase of 15.06% imposed by Eskom, the City said.
Plato said they have also taken measures to provide relief to struggling residents in response to the impacts of the global Covid-19 pandemic.
“As of April 30, we have written off outstanding debts of residents to the value of R295 million, with a proposal on tomorrow’s council agenda to write off a further R4bn in outstanding debt from residents from previous years,” he said.
A further R3.35bn has been allocated for rates relief for the 2021/22 financial year, and consists of R1.99bn for indigent relief and R1.35bn in rates rebates.
“This is in addition to the dedicated Covid-19 relief budget, primarily of R313m on the operating budget,” Plato said.
He said R11.1bn has been allocated towards the water and waste department, R13.8bn for energy and climate change, R4.6bn for the safety and security
directorate, and R4.2bn allocated towards community services and health.
Stop CoCT founder Sandra Dickson said the budget speech had some “acute contradictions”.
“On the one hand the City boasts about how much relief they give to the hard-hit-by-Covid-19 ratepayers. The mayor also thanked residents for diligently paying their municipal accounts each month (97% payment rate). However, elsewhere the speech mentions R295m written off as bad debt on April 30. A further R4bn is to be written off in this coming budget year. This begs the question of the real origin and causes for these humongous write-offs,” she said.
Dickson said no relief for pensioners or the disabled were included in the budget.
“This budget is anything but balanced. The increases serve to feed the growth of the City and all the projects the City does, which has nothing to do with service delivery and providing housing for the poor.”
Andrea Couvert, of the Woodstock Residents' Association, said Plato's speech yesterday was an example of a speech where the title of “City Continues to Prioritise Support for Residents amid Ongoing Covid-19 Impact” does not match the content.
“(The) reality: R4.6bn allocated towards our safety and security directorate, and R4.2bn towards community services and health. This means that the priority is towards the safety and security directorate, not towards the community service and health,” she said.
Plato said further details for each of the directorates will be discussed by each of the Mayco members.
Cape Times