The Democratic Alliance (DA) congratulates the City of Tshwane’s multi-party coalition government for passing their 2022/2023 financial budget.
During his presentation speech, MMC for Finance, Alderman Peter Sutton, indicated that the budget’s main priority is to advance service delivery and gearing towards financial stability.
The adopted budget will do exactly this by prioritising the maintenance and upgrades of infrastructure to improve the supply of bulk water and electricity services, repairing roads and patching potholes; and implementing social relief programmes while ensuring that the municipality’s finances are well managed.
Here are some of the budget highlights:
• To curb the scourge of cable theft, R10 million has been allocated to capacitate the Tshwane Metro Police Department’s anti cable theft unit.
• R57 million has been allocated to fast track the installation of prepaid meters to improve debt collection measures and the accuracy of the billing system.
• Over R3 billion has been allocated to the city’s various social relief programmes which will benefit indigent households.
• R4.8 million has been allocated to the city’s food bank which supports more than 15 000 families and 24 non-governmental organisations.
• R1.2 billion of the capital budget will be used to build, maintain and refurbish critical electricity and water infrastructure.
• To improve the state of our roads – R154 million has been allocated for road maintenance, R62 million to address potholes and road repairs and R7.5 million to ensure that roads are well maintained.
• R58 million has been allocated to maintain sewers and address blockages.
• To keep Tshwane illuminated, R88 million has been allocated for repairs and maintenance of street lights.
• To keep water losses to a minimum, R113 million has been allocated to address water leaks.
• To avoid injury and harm, R29,5 million has been allocated to repair sinkholes across the city.
• Tshwane is committed to keeping the city clean and beautiful. R131 million has been allocated to grass cutting of parks, sidewalks, pavements and open public places
• R25 million has been allocated towards the rehabilitation of Centurion Lake.
• R188 million has been allocated to spark economic activity and attract investments into the city.
• R101 million has been allocated to complete the e-health system and digitisation of municipal clinic services.
• R23 million has been allocated to restore Wi-Fi connections affected by vandalism and theft. This is another way the city is working to connect residents to access and wide web of information.
• R1.8 million has been allocated to support smallholder farmers with technical training to support food security initiatives and job creation in the agriculture sector.
• R702 million has been allocated towards household refuse removal and rudimentary services in informal settlements.
• R31.7 million has been allocated to strengthen the fight against drug abuse in communities.
• The city will continue to provide short term employment through its Public Employment Programme worth R140 million in funds allocated by the National Treasury.
• The Emergency Services Department has been allocated R972.4 million to ensure it continues to deliver on this mandate which includes disaster management and responding to fires and accidents.
• Land invasions hamper service delivery as critical land earmarked for development is illegally occupied. TMPD has been allocated R2.5 billion of which R31.5 million of that will go towards fighting land invasions.
Passing the budget will allow the city to continue in its effort to provide quality services to the people of Tshwane.
The DA commends Mayor Randall Williams, his Mayoral committee and his entire team for all their work on this, we look forward to seeing improved service delivery across Tshwane.