Mxolisi Kaunda, eThekwini Municipality mayor, called for residents to support the adjustment budget as it seeks to chart a new service delivery path for the city. The city’s special adjustment budget for the 2020/2021 financial year was tabled at a full council virtual meeting on Thursday, 25 February.
Kaunda said that the total consolidated second adjustment budget including entities stands at R49 412 044. “This is a pro-poor budget that has been prepared to cushion the residents from the distressing impact of the pandemic leaving many without jobs, businesses to close and others with reduced income. Covid-19 has wrecked all sectors of the economy and society at large, and it is for this reason that the city’s leadership remained steadfast in its commitment to make sure that service delivery was not compromised.”
He said that the delicate act of balancing saving lives, and livelihoods becomes even more critical. “This is precisely what we have done when we prepared this adjustment budget.”
In keeping with the vision of being a caring city, the mayor said that the city had undertaken to not disconnect services to the most vulnerable residents since March 2020, however those with substantial arrears who could not meet their monthly financial obligations had to be disconnected.
“It is encouraging that the City has maintained its impeccable collection rate and as of end January 2021 the collection rate was 95 percent. This demonstrates that the measures we have put in place to improve our billing system even prior to the pandemic is yielding positive results.
“We anticipate an improvement in collection rate in the month of February and are confident that we will see positive development throughout the financial year. Rest assured that our municipality is still functional and able to meet all its financial obligations,” he said.
Kaunda said that the city has increased the provision for electricity bulk charges due to the increased demand, as well as for bulk water with the commissioning of the western aqueduct. He said this project is critical as it seeks to provide a sustainable supply of water in the western and northern areas of the city.
“The city has also been very pragmatic with its budget and introduced staged budgeting in 2020/2021. Certain items in the budget were deferred and only brought back based on affordability. An amount of R1 billion was brought back on the capital budget in the September adjustment to be spent on improving service delivery infrastructure. In the spirit of cooperative governance, the city was able to convince the National Minister for Human Settlements, Water & Sanitation to reduce the 2020/2021 bulk water tariff increase to zero,” said Kaunda.
Kaunda commended the Minister for providing leadership and acceding to the city’s request.
He said: “We also accelerate the implementation of all major investment projects in the city as they have a potential of growing our economy and creating employment. While Covid-19 has devastated our communities and claimed the lives of many of our loved ones, we are proud of the resilience that has been shown by some of the sectors of our economy that have been able to weather the storm.”
He said the leadership of eThekwini Municipality are putting all efforts into reviving the economy and delivering much-needed services to the people. “We are therefore calling upon you to support this adjustment budget as it seeks to chart a new service delivery path for the city,” said Kaunda.
