City of Tshwane councilors debating budget speech photo by Dimakatso Modipa
ANC Councilor Frans Boshielo says the City of Tshwane is facing liquidity problems to the extent that even a loan shark (mashonisa) won’t agree to give out a loan to the Metro.
Boshielo said this today (Thursday ) during a Council meeting at Tshwane House where MMC Jacqui Uys 2024/2025 budget speech was being debated.
Uys delivered the budget speech on Tuesday this week and today was a chance for political parties in Council to way into the budget speech.
“As the ANC we want to reiterate that we don’t support the budget speech as tabled by MMC Jacqui Uys and I want to point out that the only money that the City has, is in terms of its assets and the grants it received from the Gauteng Provincial government and its liquidity is so low to the extent that it can’t borrow money anywhere,” said Boshielo.
“The city owes Eskom and Rand Water vast amounts of money and it has no wisdom or willingness to collect debts and make sure that the city works for its people,” said Boshielo.
“There is a historical debt that the City owes to its workers in terms of salaries and apparently the City can’t pay this debt to workers, who are the nerve Centre of the City,” he said.
“R56 million has been allocated for electricity reticulation which is not enough and will be depleted in around three months,” he said.
He said only R3 million has been allocated for Metro Police equipment and that the ANC in Tshwane is of the opinion that this is not enough,” said Boshielo.
“What pains us a lot more than anything else is that the city has managed to allocate R156 million just to attack black people in the form of the debt collection campaign called Tshwane Ya Tima,” he said.
“Recent reports have indicated that the City of Tshwane is at the forefront of corrupt activities and irregularities which compromise service delivery,” said EFF Councilor Tshegofatso Mashabela at the Council meeting while also lambasting the budget speech by MMC Uys.
Mashabela pointed out that R84,5 million rand has been allocated to consulting firms and R270 million has been allotted to water tankers and that this is a manifestation of a well- planned corruption scheme within the municipality.
“It has now emerged that the DA and ActionSA’s promises of insourcing security guards and cleaners of the City of Tshwane were just empty promises and political manipulation,” she said.
“Security guards, cleaners and capacity workers must not be deceived by the deceitful tactics of ActionSA during the elections because the reality is that both ActionSA and DA have no intention to insource City of Tshwane municipality workers,” she said.
“It is clear that both City of Tshwane Mayor Cilliers Brink and MMC for finance Jacqui Uys lack transparency and accountability,” said Mashabela.
She asserted that MMC Jacqui Uys doesn’t have the requisites to be MMC for finance as she lacks background in financial management and relies on other people for advice.
Mashabela also bemoaned the fact that Uys’ budget speech didn’t address the upgrading of informal settlements.
DA Councilor Anru Meyer applauded Jacqui Uys’ budget speech as it is was not only pro-poor but spoke to issues of service delivery.
“With the introduction of new ICT systems we look forward to seeing the elimination of corruption within the supply-chain management in the City of Tshwane,” said Meyer.
“ActionSA supports the Tshwane Ya Tima campaign has noted improvements in the City’s commitment to provide clean water to the people of Hammanskraal by the end of this year,” said ActionSA’s Tshwane leader Jackie Mathabathe, whose party also supported the adoption of the budget.
‘We are pleased to note the city’s commitment to reducing contracted services in order to make way for one of ActionSA’s long-standing priorities, insourcing,” Mathabathe speaking in confidence.
Mathabathe said this reduction in contracted (outsourced) services resulted from a feasibility study that looked into the insourcing of security, cleaning, water tankers, waste collection, grass cutting, and pothole repair staff, integrating them into the city’s staff complement.
“Insourcing is one of ActionSA’s flagship policy priorities, which seeks to build and strengthen the capacity of our municipality while giving dignity to the people who do these immensely important jobs,” he said.
The issue of insourcing raised a heated debate between ANC and EFF Councilors on the one hand, and the Council Speaker Mncedi Ndzwanana.
The ANC and EFF alliance demanded that the issue of insourcing City of Tshwane workers be included in the budget as was promised in the last Council meeting.
However, Ndzwanana put his foot down and announced that the feasibility report regarding insourcing of workers shall be circulated among Councilors in due course.
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