Council in budget tug of war
George Council urgently needs to meet before the end of June to finalise official budget matters, but a meeting is highly unlikely to take place this week.
While both the adjustment budget for the current financial year (2019/2020) and the final budget for the next financial year (2020/2021) need to be tabled and adopted by 30 June, most of the opposition members either don't attend the meetings, or they leave before an item can be approved. This leaves Council without a quorum.
Three meeting attempts have failed over the past month.
Speaker Gerrit Pretorius confirmed on Monday that a legal process is underway to compel councillors to attend meetings.
Themba bridge
Council's latest attempt to hold an e-council meeting took place last Friday, but due to some opposition members leaving the meeting twice, the adjustment budget for the current financial year (2019/2020) was not passed. This could have dire implications for the communities in Thembalethu.
According to Municipal Manager Trevor Botha, the most important item on the agenda was an amount of R82,127-million the municipality received from the Department of Transport. The municipality received the green light to transfer this money to Sanral, as a contribution to the widening of the Thembalethu bridge. This can only be done if the adjustment budget is approved by Council before the end of June. "If we don't do that, we lose the money," said Botha. The adjustment budget must be approved by the majority of Council and not just tabled.
Wish list
The opposition say they are willing to play along, but none of the matters on their wish list that the DA previously agreed to incorporate in the 2019/2020 adjustment budget, were included on Friday's agenda. The list included upgrades and services in various communities in George. Acting chief financial officer Leon Wallace explained that this specific adjustment budget is a "special adjustment budget" where permission was given by National Treasury to address issues related to the Covid-19 pandemic. He said their concerns will be addressed with the tabling of the 2020/2021 budget for the coming financial year. Mayor Leon van Wyk confirmed this, saying he has given the undertaking that the matters will be addressed in the main budget.
Three meeting attempts have failed over the past month.