Joburg mayor focuses on delivery
CITY of Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba has vowed to cut out luxuries like international travel and other non-essential projects to focus on real service delivery.
Mashaba vowed to hold local government officials accountable as he tries to secure money to reduce the infrastructural backlog in the city.
To achieve this‚ Mashaba said his office had decided to deprioritise certain expenditure and redirect the money to the poor.
“I’m going to focus on maintenance of our infrastructure.
“We are sitting with over R170-billion of infrastructure backlog, electricity being the biggest one – 27% of our electricity infrastructure is already under pressure.
“Today we are a city of over five million people but the infrastructure is not really being maintained.
“We need to focus on electrification‚ provision of water in informal settlements so that our people can get dignity‚” Mashaba said.
Among other projects‚ he spoke of focusing on the inner city and working with the private sector to build affordable accommodation and better roads.
To ensure meaningful progress, Mashaba said he would be stringent in holding officials accountable.
The city’s much-contested budget was finally approved on Tuesday after opposition parties forced him to reduce it by R300-million.
The EFF had refused to accept the new tariffs and rates. It proposed the electricity hike should be decreased from 7.37% to 7.17%‚ while the proposed water tariff increase should drop from 14.2% to 13.2%.
The DA accepted the changes and the budget was adopted.