Transport body dogged by problems

PROBLEMS gripping the City’s roads and upgrades projects have lead to the directorate severely underspending its budget.

According to the City’s financial monitoring report for September, the directorate has a net negative variance, which is an accumulation of slower-than-anticipated expenditure on a number of projects.

The City’s mayco member for transport, Felicity Purchase, said: “The transport directorate has recorded an over-expenditure of R44.8 million on its operational budget for the current financial year to date (from July 1, 2019 to September 30, 2019).

The transport directorate has recorded an underexpenditure on its capital budget of R51m for the current financial year (2019/2020) to date (from July 1, 2019 to September 30, 2019).”

Projects listed in the report include Jan Smuts Drive where construction and services relocation is under way. The report states that the contract progress is good, with an anticipated completion date of December 2020.

“Crime, as well as damage to existing infrastructure and theft, especially after hours, remain a major problem on the construction site.”

The report also states that an accrual of R20.9m in respect of work done in the 2018/19 financial year resulted in negative expenditure for the 2019/20 financial year for the dualling of Bosmansdam Road between Montague Drive and Koeberg Road.

“And rehabilitation of Jakes Gerwel

“Crime, damage to infrastructure and theft remain a major problem

Felicity Purchase MAYCO MEMBER FOR TRANSPORT

– the tender was cancelled and will be re-advertised for implementation in the 2020/21financial year.

“The construction of infrastructure needed for the roll-out of Phase 2A of the MyCiTi service along Jan Smuts Drive is making good progress, despite ongoing challenges with crime, damage to existing infrastructure and theft, especially after hours,” Purchase said.

Back in July, the Cape Argus reported that myriad problems, ranging from gang activity to contractor terminations and liquidations, were preventing the City’s transport directorate from spending more than R120m on upgrading infrastructure in townships.

This was revealed after it emerged that the directorate had been unable to spend over R120m of its annual budget to date.

It was also able to only spend 57% of its Urban Settlements Development Grant (USDG), a grant it receives from the national government.

The directorate stated it had managed to spend only R51m of the R61m from the USDG it had planned to spend.