Make them do right

THESE economic times, amid an ever widening state budget deficit, are tough.

It thus boggles the mind that a council of any municipality would dream up a plan to collect all the roll-over budgets that have been saved from the previous year and club the money together to let their mayor get a new state-of-the-art car costing up to R1.5-million.

Sowetan ran the story on Tuesday of how the Emalahleni local council decided that their mayor, Lindiwe Ntshalintshali not only needed new wheels, but are prepared to spend that whooping amount on the car.

First it is curious how the money saved from four other developmental projects could be seen to be utilised effectively by buying the mayor a new car.

Amid a call from the Treasury for all levels of state departments to tighten their belts and go on a drastic costcutting exercise by spending wisely, it is appalling that the council arrived at such a decision.

Despite the medium-term budget policy statement highlighting the need for state funds to be used to prioritise service delivery and do away with the nice-to-haves, the decision to utilise the funds for a luxury car speaks to skewed priorities of many politicians.

Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan was at pains to note in his budget speech that the state can no longer afford to spend money that it does not have or on frivolous expenditure and even went as far as suggesting a cut on all non-service jobs in government in his bid to rein in rampant wasteful expenditure.

For these politicians, as long as there is a guideline that can allow them to buy expensive cars and houses, they would rather spend taxpayers’ money on their image and pandering to their love for material things than using the resources more sensibly.

This type of choice can only be made by politicians who do not have the interests of their constituencies at heart.

Some of the money earmarked to buy a car to drive the mayor in comfort was taken from key areas of service delivery.

It is high time that such frivolous benefits as sought by the mayor are revised by national government to be in line with reduced income and to curb excesses.

As the status quo stands, there are many politicians who will choose to hide behind these guidelines, which were in all likelihood dreamt up by likeminded people.

We hope municipalities like Emalahleni will take a leaf out of Tshwane mayor Solly Msimanga’s book. Msimanga this week earned our respect and admiration for his vigorous move on cost-cutting measures when he rejected 10 new expensive BMW cars which the ANCled administration bought with public money before the recent municipal elections.

To Msimanga and his DA, we say this is the right way to go.