By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
City of Tshwane Executive Mayor Cilliers Brink has outlined his administration’s main priorities during the State of the City Address (SOCA) on Thursday.
Brink highlighted the need for an improvement in delivery of basic services to residents and to get City’s finances under control as top of his agenda.
It was Brink’s maiden State of the City Address following his election as part of the DA-led multiparty coalition in Tshwane.
“Our focus must return to the basics of local government, in short water, electricity, waste collection, sewage, roads, public lighting and safety, and finding sustainable ways of delivering these services and securing the infrastructure through which they are provided,” he said.
Brink told councillors that the city will embark on an aggressive revenue collection campaign, to be able to settle debts owed to Eskom and Rand Water.
– We have to pay for our obligations, so drastic measures will be taken in the coming weeks to turn our arrear debtors into cash.
– To achieve a revenue collection rate of at least 93%, we will need to perform at least 1 000 credit control disconnections every week and take measures to prevent illegal reconnections.
– To achieve this level of performance, the city manager will drive a series of changes in systems and personnel in the Revenue Management Division.
– Taking these measures is not just about good financial management, it is an obligation the city owes to the hundreds of thousands of consumers who do pay their bills on time,” added Brink.
Brink also said that National Treasury had sent experts to assist the administration with its books.
Earlier this year the City came under fire after it incurred an adverse audit opinion from the AG for the 2021/22 financial year. The financial performance was the worst ever recorded by the municipality. The report painted a disastrous picture of the city’s financial management with irregular expenditure of R10.4 billion and fruitless and wasteful expenditure understated by R1bn. Unauthorised expenditure was understated by R600 million.
The municipality came under scrutiny for failing to properly account for assets worth more than R52bn, and more than R800m was not properly accounted for leave payments.
The AG report also flagged the municipality for failing to account for millions of rand it claimed to have spent on various service delivery activities.
In many instances, the City was found wanting for submitting incorrect and incomplete financial statements, resulting in the AG issuing adverse audit findings.
Brink said that the municipality needed all the assistance it could get after it received an adverse audit report finding for the 2021/2022 financial year.
He said that government would also be providing the city with an interim chief financial officer until a permanent one was hired.
“Work is also being done on a funding plan, the financial recovery plan that is so essential to making sure that our revenue matches our expenditure.”