The Democratic Alliance (DA) recently opposed the 2023-2024 Dawid Kruiper budget and continues to fight unfair tariff increases. The budget punishes residents, who are already struggling to survive unaffordable living costs, by making them pay for financial mismanagement and bad service delivery.
At the end of April, outstanding debt of R265 million, which was older than 30 days, was owed to the municipality while it is also failing to pay its debtors on time, with R93 million still outstanding after 30 days. Personnel costs exceed 47% of operating expenditure, above the national norm of 25-40%. Overtime costs are out of control, as the same repair work gets undertaken repeatedly, aggravating the maintenance backlog. The municipality has done nothing to address any of this.
The Mayor increased his budget from R600 000 to R1 million, to augment access to discretionary funding to sponsor events like the Easter soccer tournament which, if managed correctly, could generate revenue.
The municipality has become too dependent on revenue generated from especially electricity and water sales to keep itself afloat, pushing more residents into poverty.
The failure to prioritise electricity losses is also contributing to the 18% electricity tariff increase, which is almost 3% above the NERSA-approved increase. From January until May 2023, over R 6, 577 million unauthorised electricity use was discovered yet the municipality has failed to prioritize the appointment of personnel to further expose and address unauthorized use. This is despite a recommendation by NERSA in 2021, for a proposed staff component to improve electricity provision.
The costs of thousands of litres of water losses, due to leaks that are not attended to by the municipality, have also contributed to the water tariff increase of 5% that must be carried by residents.
The DA yesterday requested an audit of water losses, including unregistered water meters and leaks. We will table a motion in the upcoming council meeting, calling for the electricity tariff to be brought down from 18%, in line with the NERSA guideline increase of 15,10%. While a request by the DA for a professional audit of personnel to improve service delivery and expenditure has been twice opposed in council, we will also continue to push for this.
Every little bit counts on the overstretched budgets of residents who are struggling to make ends meet.