Cllr Godwin Ratikwane
Chairperson of the Section 79 Municipal Public Accounts Committee at Wonderboom airport photo supplied
By Cllr Godwin Ratikwane
Chairperson of the Section 79 Municipal Public Accounts Committee
The Municipal Public Accounts (MPAC) Chairperson, Cllr Godwin Ratikwane conducted a pre-inspection oversight at Wonderboom Airport on Tuesday.
Cllr Godwin Ratikwane
Chairperson of the Section 79 Municipal Public Accounts Committee on oversight at Wonderboom airport photo supplied
This comes after the airport appeared in the committee to provide reports on
the airport’s current situation.
During his oversight visit, the Chairperson observed visibly dilapidated infrastructure at the airport which has not seen any major maintenance taking place at the city owned National airport.
Cllr Ratikwane further discovered that for the past 20 years, there has never been any major maintenance which took place at the airport which has briefly been utilised as a commercial airport between the years, 2015 to 2018.
Another major challenge faced by the airport is the non-compliance of tenants or flight schools who are utilising the airport either for training of their aviation students, private companies or individuals who uses the airport for their leisure.
The City of Tshwane Council took resolution during the 2021/22 financial year that all discounts at the airport be scrapped and that the tenants start paying full amounts.
Despite this, there are about seven (7) flight schools which have not paid the city’s requested rates from 2021/22 financial year but rather opted to continue paying the self-imposed 80% discount, disregarding both the 2021/22 financial year Council resolutions and the revised 2024/25 financial year resolutions, which went on to give
the tenants a three year gradual decline in the discounted rates.
In a city where compliance is the order of the day, we cannot allow this kind of deliberate non-compliance by the flight schools who are accommodating mostly international students subsidised by either their organs of state, or home institutions etc.
The city is currently in court demanding that the court obligates all non complying flight schools, based in the city’s airport to pay all the rates owed to the city.
This is the continuing effort to maximize revenue collections by the city.