Durban — The eThekwini Municipality has approved the R242-million Community Participation and Action Support (CPAS) unit business plan for 2022/2023.
The CPAS will use the R242m to co-ordinate and implement various programmes. An amount of R148m will go towards programmes while R71m will go towards salaries and allowances.
In a report to the eThekwini full council, the community services committee (CSC) expressed concerns about the late submission of the business plan of the CPAS and the inadequate time to critically analyse the content.
During the discussion at the support committee level, the DA advised that it was generally concerned that the CPAS unit issued invitations to events late and there was poor consultation of ward councillors before implementing events.
Contributing to the committee discussion, the ANC referred to the budget and advised that this was insufficient, considering that the CPAS unit plays a significant role in community engagements, supports municipal departments across the board, and also considering the endless challenges with the implementation of the soup kitchens programme.
The ANC in eThekwini proposed consideration be given to increase the CPAS unit budget.
The EFF drew attention to what they regarded as high costs for general expenses and recommended that these be minimised.
Addressing council, DA councillor Sakhile Mngadi said the idea of CPAS was good, but the reality was that the CPAS does many things, not in the ethos of what it was meant to achieve.
Mngadi said the CPAS unit was highly politicised and actively campaigned on a political level when it should be an apolitical structure.
“R150m will be used on programmes that there is no clarity on. I am aware that the business plan around this expenditure arrived late,” Mngadi said.
ANC councillor Nomvula Hlomuka said she accepted the business plan because the CPAS mandate was helping councillors to connect more with people as a local government.
Daily News