On Thursday, 03 March 2022 marked 100 days since Executive Mayor of the City of Ekurhuleni, Tania Campbell was elected to office as the Executive Mayor of the City of Ekurhuleni. While there is no legislative obligation for any administration to report back on their first 100 days, we recognise this symbolic milestone as an important opportunity to account to the residents of Ekurhuleni on progress made since our accession to office.
We successfully constituted an inclusive multi-party coalition government, initially consisting of the Democratic Alliance, Action SA, Freedom Front Plus, Inkatha Freedom Party, African Christian Democratic Party and the Congress of the People, and we recently strengthened it with the addition of the Patriotic Alliance.
As a minority government, a crucial objective to ensure functioning government is getting budgets passed, and in this regard, we were happy to secure an adjustment budget last week in Council for the remainder of the 2021/2022 financial year.
The adjustment budget is focused on supporting better service delivery in crucial and longneglected areas such as security of water and electricity supply, roads and stormwater infrastructure maintenance, solid waste removal, environmental management, and sanitation. It does this while at the same time reigning in spending in non-service delivery focused areas to reverse the perilously depleted state in which we found the city’s finances, marked by:
- Cash on hand deteriorated to a 14-days reserve, which we have since improved to a 21-day reserve, with some way to go to meet National Treasury’s 30-day minimum requirements
- A Moody’s downgrade at the end of November 2022, necessitating a R500m reduction in borrowing impacting capital expenditure; and,
- A collection rate of around 84%, compared to the budgeted 90% rate.
Our “Back-to-Basics” approach to service delivery provision has however already yielded significant results in the past 100 days, amongst which I highlight the following:
- On Electricity: A R117 million has been allocated to the Energy Department to promote energy security in the city. In addition, a further R40 million for maintenance and R77 million for new infrastructure have been allocated to minimise power outages caused by ageing and poorly maintained infrastructure in the city. The city is still plagued by regular extended outages because of poorly maintained and out of date infrastructure, particularly during the current extreme weather conditions. While they will take time to yield an impact, these investments are intended to reduce those outages. In the interim the city has been directed to improve demand forecasting for maintenance supplies and communications on supply outages.
- On Environment and Waste: A 112 illegal dumping spots have been cleared throughout the city and significance progress has been made to clear hyacinth and rehabilitate the Benoni lakes and dams. The Weltevreden Landfill has been reopened, with the Rooikraal Landfill to be reopened by mid-March.
- On Roads and Stormwater: Maintenance was done on 2100 stormwater drains throughout the city, and 48km of roads have been rehabilitated. 550 road signs have been installed and maintained and 29000m2 of potholes have been patched throughout the city
- On Water and Sanitation: 48 water points were installed at Mayfield Extension 15 in Ward 96. The Impala and Kwa-Thema water reservoirs have also been completed.
- On Human Settlements: Construction commenced on 152 units at the Leeuwpoort development, with a further 188 units to on track for completion at the Vosloorus Urban Renewal project by 30 March 2022. A 157 out of 197 units have been completed for allocation at Chris Hani Phase 2.
- On the creation of Work Opportunities: The city has concluded contracts with 1100 Public Employment Programme beneficiaries, with a further EPWP 220 work opportunities created in roads and stormwater maintenance.
- On Financial Management and Good Governance: A new city Audit Committee was appointed in December 2021, and a meeting held with the Chairperson to indicate the Multiparty Coalition’s full support for its work in ensuring financial compliance and good governance by the city administration.
- On the General Valuations Roll 2021 to 2025: Inefficiently distributed objection outcomes were uploaded to the city’s Siyakhokha platform. Financial “open days” were held in February to promote assistance to aggrieved property owners. We successfully lobbied Provincial Government for the expeditious establishment of the Ekurhuleni Valuations Appeal Board and an extension in the deadline for the appeals to 29 April 2022. We have also arranged that residents could make rate payment arrangements at their proposed property valuation while their appeals are being finalised.
These areas of progress have already made some positive impact on the lives of our residents. However, much progress still needs to be made to comprehensively extricate the City of Ekurhuleni from the low base of service delivery on which it functioned prior to the Local Government Election of November 2021. However tough the journey ahead may still be, the Mult-Party Coalition is resolute in continuing to restore proper service delivery to the City of
Ekurhuleni in line with our “Back-to-Basics” ethos. Further details in this regard will be announced in the State of the City Address of 30 March 2022.