Pretoria - City of Tshwane mayor Cilliers Brink has promised to get the embattled capital’s finances under “control”.
Brink, who took over the mayoral chain in March through a coalition government, also vowed to respond to concerns of the auditor-general (AG).
The municipality had been without a mayor since February.
Earlier this year, Auditor-General Tsakani Maluleke painted a grim picture of the metro’s finances, saying it had serious irregularities.
The AG also found that the City failed to submit correct financial statements for the July 2021 to June 2022 financial year. Randall Williams was mayor at the time.
Now Brink has prioritised solving the municipality’s financial woes.
He was speaking on the sidelines of a packed PSG Wealth Management business breakfast in Pretoria yesterday.
“We need to get control of the city’s finances and answer concerns of the AG. Our vision for the city is to create a capital city that works for all of its people. Finances of the city have been a challenge … We are in a cash crunch … We owe Eskom money and that has an effect on service delivery,” said Brink.
He added that other priorities included putting measures in place to reduce unscheduled power and water outages, so that the city would be less dependent on Eskom.
Last year, the City embarked on a project, Tshwane ya tima, (Tshwane switches off) that saw government buildings owing rates and taxes being switched off.
He said for the city to be able to pay its Eskom bill, the project would continue.
“Tshwane ya tima is essential. We need to get up to 96% collection rate and we are nowhere near that and unless we fix that we won’t be able to get on top of the Eskom bill. We are still in arrears but we are openly honest with Eskom,” he said.
Asked if he was fund-raising for his party (the DA) at the event, ahead of next year’s elections, Brink told the Pretoria News he was looking to bring confidence to the coalition government by engaging business.
“I’m not fund-raising,” he assured, saying: “People are desperate for good news and confidence, so that’s what I try to convey.
“I have addressed several communities in the past few years and it is important to address the business community and to speak to individuals who make an important contribution to the subsidisation of services.
“Those people subsidise services to the less wealthy. So we don’t want to lose this community,” he said.
Brink conceded that his party and the coalition government had not done their best since the DA took over in 2016.
“There has been many disappointments since 2016 when the ANC were dislodged from power.
“Many people looked at what happened in the Western Cape and expected the same rate of change and delivery but the underlying conditions were different. We didn’t have a majority in council between 2016 and 2021 and we (were) dependent on the support of the EEF, which is idealistically misaligned to the DA and our coalition partners,” he said.
He said that the changes that should have been made in 2016 were not possible because of the lack of a majority.
“Now we do have a majority but at the same time we have serious issues such as the adverse audit findings that we have to respond to.
“The fact that in many instances we don’t have capable and apolitical officials who can do the best job ... it doesn’t matter who the mayor is,” Cilliers said.
Some of his priorities are to make sure basic services are improved, to secure the services infrastructure and to establish a performance management system.
Pretoria News