In the interest of service delivery to the people of Tshwane, the Democratic Alliance (DA) has asked ActionSA to reconsider its decision to vote against the adjustment budget of the coalition government.
The adjustment budget is to be considered by Tshwane’s municipal council today after the vote had to be postponed from last week due to ActionSA’s conduct. Today is the statutory deadline for the approval of any adjustment to a municipality’s budget.
This is a budget that ActionSA had every opportunity to influence. Unfortunately, their members of the mayoral committee (MMCs) and councillors failed to do so.
The first time Mayor Randall Williams and the other parties in the coalition government learnt that ActionSA would oppose the adjustment budget was on Monday last week, days before it was to be tabled in the municipal council for a vote (on Thursday).
At the caucus meeting where this notice was given, ActionSA councillors made no attempt to come forward with alternative proposes. In fact, they made no effort to articulate what their grievances were about.
By this time ActionSA MMCs had several opportunities, which they failed to use, to propose changes to the adjustment budget. Several budget preparation meetings took place during February.
Mayor Williams nonetheless took steps to postpone the Council’s consideration of the adjustment budget from Thursday to today, to allow the coalition to understand and try to accommodate ActionSA’s demands.
But not all of the eleventh-hour demands made by ActionSA could be accommodated, not without rendering Tshwane’s budget unfunded and jeopardising the city’s whole service delivery programme.
The DA will make a last-ditch effort to convince ActionSA not to sabotage the coalition government by voting against the adjustment budget. We hope that sanity, and a sense of service to the people of Tshwane, will prevail.