Budget to improve service delivery
Danny Jordaan takes over as mayor
A FULL council meeting was convened on June 18 where Nelson Mandela Bay mayor Danny Jordaan presented the IDP and budget for the financial year of 2015-2016. The budget focuses on the core mandate of the local state, which is service delivery and local economic development.
The economic position of the metro is not good because of a number of challenges which include the high unemployment rate, which is at 36.6%, the global recession which affected us negatively and the challenges faced by the motor industry. The mayor presented a cash-backed budget with a projected surplus that will increase over the next three years.
Jordaan, in his inaugural speech, displayed an attitude of working with everybody, including all political parties and other spheres of government, in cutting down on non-core items and to present a cash-backed budget as the then draft budget had a deficit of more than R400-million. The cash-backed budget will improve service delivery because:
The mayor has cut overseas trips by 100%;
The stormwater improvements budget has been increased from R2.5-million to R20-million;
Some R8-million has been set aside for the upkeep of existing memorial sites;
The municipality should deal with electricity and water losses;
Debt collection will be addressed. These are just a few areas of improvements in the budget.
Once again, the DA did not support this budget, the reason being to orchestrate the following scenario: if the budget was passed with a deficit, the municipality would not meet its financial commitments, which would have led the municipality into anarchy and chaos because employees’ salaries would not be paid. The reputation of the municipality would be dented.
The DA wants to portray the ANC as a party which cannot govern. This scenario is what the DA is praying for daily so that people can lose confidence in the ANC.
At the council meeting, the leader of he DA in this metro, Retief Odendaal, said: “This budget is not different from the apartheid budget,” which is not true because before 1994, communities, particularly Africans, did not have a say and inputs in the processes leading to the adoption of the final budget. Councillors were not elected democratically, therefore they did not represent the wishes and aspirations of the communities they claimed to represent.
Odendaal went on to claim that wards in the so-called northern areas were not budgeted for because the ANC was punishing those communities for not voting for the ANC in the previous elections. This is fallacy because most of those wards have a budget of at least R5-million each and public meetings were convened in all areas in the metro where communities raised their wishes.
The DA and its ward councillors did not attend these public meetings because they are not in touch with those communities. They didn’t even attend the council meeting at Nangoza Jebe Hall because they were concerned about their “safety”, which I fail to understand as an elected representative.
It is time for the citizens of the metro to support this budget and the newly appointed mayoral leadership. Jordaan and his team are here to service everybody irrespective of their colour, race and gender.
They are the only solution to the challenges in the northern areas and the entire metro.
I won’t be surprised at the next council meeting if all DA councillors submit leaves of absence as they do not associate themselves with the disadvantaged communities.
Monde Vaaltyn, ANC Ward 45 councillor and member of the budget and treasury standing committee