Johannesburg - The City of Joburg will present its adjustment budget for consideration to the full meeting of the councils on Thursday.
An adjustment budget allows a municipality to revise its annual budget during the year by adding additional costs to the standard budget.
Mayor Herman Mashaba said that since taking office on August 23, the new administration had grappled with a budget and business plans that it inherited from the previous administration.
“This represents a major challenge when communities expect change. This need for change is especially felt by those who have become part of Joburg’s forgotten people. These are people entirely excluded from the economy. These are residents who have been waiting on the housing list since the dawn of democracy,” he said.
Mashaba said the National Treasury permitted only minor adjustments to the existing budget, and that represented the first chance the new administration would have to introduce change.
“This will take place exactly six months to the day that the new administration walked into office,” he said.
The rules do not allow the mayor to publicly discuss the adjustment budget in detail until the council has adopted it.
He said he would focus on service delivery and correcting some of the failures produced by neglect and the previous administration’s poor
priorities.
The adjustment budget would focus on:
Public safety and by-law enforcement.
The roll out of housing.
Health-care provision.
Roads and traffic infra-
structure.
Strengthening the fight against corruption.
Service delivery and responsiveness.
The new administration will present its first budget on March 30 for the 2017/18 financial year.
“In this budget, we will not be limited to adjusting the budget. This is the budget where our projects will kick-start an era of change.”
@annacox