Must take care of indigent
FOLLOWING the headlines and editorial comment about the pro-poor policy adopted by the previous ANC administration, led by former mayor Danny Jordaan (“Danny’s pro-poor policy drains metro’s coffers”, January 19 and “Municipality walks financial tightrope”, January 20), an insinuation was peddled that the policy was the cause of the declining revenue of the municipality.
The Assistance to the Poor programme (ATTP) is a subsidy programme for indigent formal households that cannot afford municipal services. Through it the municipality provides free basic services to households earning a collective income of R3 000 per month or less.
This includes people who are unemployed, and those receiving state grants like pensions, foster care or disability grants. These free basic services include 75kWh of electricity, 8kl water, 11kl of sewerage services, and discounted refuse and rates charges.
This financial assistance comes from the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality’s equitable share allocation.
Data in the State of the City’s Finances 2015 report suggests that 59% of Nelson Mandela Bay households earn less than R3 000 per month – this could be around 140 000 households. Considering the socio-economic profile of the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality – a population of 1.2 million people – 377 000 (mostly black people and African in majority) live below the poverty line and are state-dependent categorised as indigent.
The dependency rate in the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality, according to the ECDC report on the regional economic profile of the metro, stands at 46.8% of people who are indigent, which is almost half of the population of the metro. That on its own validates the need for the ATTP.
Migration patterns suggest that while a number of people leave the Eastern Cape in search of economic opportunities, most migration is internal, that is movement between the rural areas and urban nodes such as Port Elizabeth, East London and Mthatha.
The DA-led coalition must be realistic when it wants to review the ATTP policy, and alert to the fact that our communities both in the townships and northern areas are poor and some cannot afford services. The Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality has about 80 000 ATTP recipients with waiting lists of a possible 8 000 and an unknown number eligible in terms of metro criteria.
The then ANC-led administration acknowledged the fact that the number of ATTP beneficiaries had grown. With each new successful ATTP applicant’s outstanding debt being written off as part of the ATTP process, there is a concomitant outflow from the equitable share allocation, and thus less of this grant can be used for repairs and maintenance.
We agree that this results in an increase in municipal repairs and maintenance backlogs. Also we are aware that 31% of formal households in the metro cannot afford basic services in terms of the indigent programme.
This is an unsustainable situation that needs urgent intervention. What is expected from this coalition is to address the challenge of unemployment and poverty in the townships and northern areas.
Taking a short cut to review the ATTP will lead to social discontent, something all of us can’t afford. The coalition’s approach must be tested with a public participation process within our communities and the coalition will see the wrath of the people.
It must accept the fact that most of our people in the townships live from hand to mouth, have extended families and live on “black tax” (funds provided by the extended family).
For the DA-led coalition to think of reviewing the programme exposes which constituency it serves.
Gift Ngqondi, ANC regional spokesperson, Nelson Mandela Bay