“Stop wasting our money before you ask us for more.”
This was the united message by eThekwini ratepayer associations which attended the eThekwini Municipality’s special full council meeting at the Durban Exhibition Centre on Wednesday.
They said the municipality did not consider their input before the budget was tabled, adding that the tariff increases were too high and would plunge residents into debt.
Led by mayor Mxolisi Kaunda, the City said “extensive public budget consultations were held over six weeks in all municipal regions to unpack the draft budget and IDP to relevant stakeholders”.
In a May 31 news letter, the City’s chief financial officer, Dr Sandile Mnguni, said as of May 22, 60.6% of the comments received had been from residents and stakeholders.
“Of the 160 comments and objections received regarding tariffs increases, only 5% opposed it while 95% approved the tariff increases. Only 15% of pensioners and 8.1% of the ratepayer associations objected to the tariff increases,” said Mnguni.
Bluff Ratepayers & Residents Association (BRRA) chairperson Norman Gilbert said: “The challenge with (Wednesday’s) meeting was that it was supposed to be a consultative process with the community.”
He complained that the eThekwini Municipality designed a budget, determined how much it needed to collect and then determined which sectors would face increases.
Gilbert said: “I think the increases are irrational and the average ratepayer can’t afford the hikes. An example of this is with electricity. The National Energy Regulator of South Africa agreed to 18.65% before the municipality added almost 3% to that, making it 21.91%.
“After resistance from other ratepayer associations, that additional 3% is gone. In terms of water, they are still receiving an additional 9%.”
He said the reasons they were given by the City was that they were building a new dam ‒ Upper Umkhomazi Dam ‒ and he questioned the cost of building such a project. Gilbert said the rates and money collected ended up being misused and if that wasn’t the case, there would be no need for tariff hikes.
BRRA vice-chairperson Allison Schoeman said the City had to revise the budget and hold officials responsible for wasteful and irregular expenditure to account. She said they should get the money returned to the city’s residents, and only then “we’ll see if there’s a need for tariff increases”.
Westville Ratepayers Association (WRA) chairperson Asad Gaffar referred to the mayor calling this budget “the people’s budget”, saying he wasn’t too sure who the mayor was referring to.
“This budget is still ridiculously high and he speaks on addressing past imbalances. I challenge the mayor to take me to any informal settlement or township where the City has intervened and made the lives of those people better than pre-1994,” Gaffar said.
He said they had no issue if funds were used to address past imbalances, but because so many people were still suffering the same problems, the City was failing to do so.
Gaffar referred to the mayor’s speech on job creation, EPWP and building of a dam and said he mentioned them as a “smokescreen” to make people happy. “These interventions come from the national government, not ratepayers. Putting that on the table as the reason why he needs to increase the budget is wrong. He needs to speak the truth.”
Overport Ratepayers Association chairperson, Abdool Valodia, said Overport contributed millions to the Durban economy and he found it hard to believe what was in this budget because of continued poor service delivery. He had no confidence in the budget and believed “they now have more money to steal”.
Valodia said the council needed more business-minded people on board and on their platforms because they run the economy. “If we run the economy and have high success, we’ll be able to run the city successfully and we will provide ideas on how to run it successfully.”
The final budget proposed for 2023/24 was R65.5 billion, which consists of an operating budget of R57.4 billion and a capital budget of R8.1 billion.
One of the ratepayers associations, WRA, is hosting a fundraising day at the Westville Country Club today to raise money for potential legal battles ‒ and is naming their events in line with service delivery issues.
WRA executive member Rose Cortes said it would be a day filled with satirical humour, reminiscent of protest theatre born out of the oppressive climate of the past.
She said among their planned events were the E Coli Fun Run; Find My Mayor Treasure Hunt; Filling My Pothole eating competition; a Spelling B.B.B.E.E. and a six-a-side football match between a “cadre deployment” side versus a “preferred tender” side.
The City declined to comment further on the the mayor’s statements, referring to a video link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jLlAA0LV38) and a Thursday press briefing.
The Independent on Saturday