Security plan hit by rejection of budget
THE same political parties who successfully pushed for contract security guards to be permanently hired by the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality are the ones who have ensured that this cannot legally happen now.
The opposition rejected the adjustments budget earlier this week.
Consequently, the money set aside for absorbing 460 security staff previously employed by private security firms cannot be lawfully used by the metro.
Neither can about R40-million earmarked for ridding the metro of the abhorrent bucket toilet system by June be used.
The council’s failure to adopt the 2017-18 adjustments budget means that spending money on projects not catered for in the original budget, passed in May last year, cannot be used without it amounting to unauthorised expenditure.
This would raise audit queries with the auditor-general and hamper efforts by the municipality to strive for a clean audit.
The motion to in-source security staff was put forward by the EFF in March last year and it was rammed through by the opposition with the help of the UDM.
Two months later, the decision had to be rescinded as the positions did not feature on the staff organogram and there were no costs attached to the decision meaning there could be no budget allocated to it.
The opposition parties then gave the city six months to add the positions and work out the costs.
On November 30, the decision was finally taken to in-source the service with plans to make adjustments to the budget in the adjustments budget.
Yesterday, Mettler said it would also be unlawful for him to allow the metro to incur irregular expenditure knowingly. “It’s going to be very difficult. I must try to avoid any irregular expenditure, but it is not looking good.”
Mettler said political heads and executive directors now had to go back to the drawing board to find a way of prioritising projects.
The metro’s political head of budget and treasury, Retief Odendaal, said not adopting the adjustments budget would have huge repercussions for service delivery.
This also meant that the Mandela Bay Development Agency (MBDA) would have to accelerate its own spending and attempt to spend R10million that the city had intended to slash from its budget.
On in-sourcing security staff, Odendaal said the city would have no choice but to forge ahead and absorb them all, even though it amounted to unauthorised expenditure.
“It is regrettable that this has to happen because councillors failed to apply their minds, but it would be inhumane to tell all those security guards that they no longer have employment,” he said.
Other projects that would be affected included public lighting, R35.7-million that had been set to go towards electrification of shacks, and R13-million which would have gone towards buying municipal vehicles.
The adjustments budget was rejected on Tuesday by all the opposition parties, who claimed it failed to address issues faced by some of the poorest people in the metro.
ANC councillor Rory Riordan, who said on Tuesday the budget was racially biased, said yesterday the DA-led administration would have to wait a little longer to spend the money.
“In-sourcing can still go ahead once a motion goes to council,” Riordan said.
“The challenge will be around the
eradication of the bucket toilet system as the money is in the municipality’s capital account.
“If you put together an appalling budget, this is what you can expect to get.”
The EFF’s Zilindile Vena said they were aware of the repercussions of rejecting the adjustments budget, but the DA needed to take the blame for the possible audit query.
“The DA is in this situation because they failed to accept and budget for the in-sourcing when we first brought the matter to the council,” Vena said.
“We had demands and they decided not to consult with us. The budget prioritised street lighting in town and upgrading the Baakens Valley.
“Projects such as in-sourcing are a by-the-way and not a priority to them.
“We were not going to be forced to accept this adjustments budget.
“The DA must answer when they have an audit query and know it is because of their own clumsiness – they cannot blame us for that. If you don’t have political power, you engage and you negotiate.”
United Front councillor Mkhuseli Mtsila said the DA was trying to blackmail them by saying that they were stalling service delivery.
“These people don’t care about our people in the townships and it showed when they tried to redirect money from various wards towards Ironman,” Mtsila said.
“When it suited them they could redirect money, they must do the same right now.”
He said the DA had failed to listen to suggestions on how spending money on community halls and sports and recreation infrastructure was a fast way to create jobs.