THE BUDGET CRISIS IN CITY DEEPENS; COSATU AND ANC TO TAKE ACTION
The Alliance uncovers R4 Billion rand that the DA did not spend in the 2011 City of Cape Town budget and considers protest for urgent action.
The ANC has uncovered an additional R3 billion rand that was available to the City coffers that the DA could spend in the 2011 financial year. The Council had previously approved a resolution where R7 billion could be raised from the bond markets, of this amount only R4 billion was accessed, due to the Council being cash flush.
This is still money that the City had available as a loan facility and was available to be spent in the 2011 financial year. Added to this amount is the more than R1 billion that the DA did not spend from the 2010 -2011 City Capital Budget. This under spend in the face of the devastating social injury and huge delivery deficits, is entirely unacceptable.
This amounts to R4.3 billion that the City DA did not spend. This money could have provided basic services to all the houses in informal settlements, so water , electricity and sanitation could have been laid on to all informal houses. This money could have been used to provide services to all backyard dwellers so they have their own water, electricity and sanitation. These funds could also have significantly contributed to the provision of houses in the City Of Cape Town.
These funds could have been used to alleviate the transport crisis faced by working Class communities on the Cape Flats. This money could have been used to create 100 000 new jobs in the Environmental economy. This mismanagement of finances has put the economy and service delivery back by many years and has shown people of the City that the DA does not see their desperate needs as urgent.
The DA has now put a blanket on the release of all public budget information to the ANC Chief Whip; this is entirely unacceptable and goes against the principle of transparency that should exist in a public institution. The ANC will be making an application under the disclosure of information act, should the city not provide the budget information requested by 14 July at 12 00 hours.
This ban on the release on information is an attempt to hide the mismanagement of the City Finances, but officials in the City are slipping us the information in spite of the ban from the politician. This also points to a crisis in the administration.
We believe there are 3 reasons why the money was not spent. The first is to get a higher credit rating and the second is because of incompetence of the Administration and lack of responsibility of the political leadership, the third reason is that the money is parked so that it can be use to roll out bicycle lanes in all the wealthy areas, and this could not be done before the elections.
Whatever the reasons may be, what is clear is that Ian Nielsen has mismanaged the finances of the City and severely prejudiced the interest of the poorer communities of Cape Town who wait in desperate circumstances for the City to deliver. The reasons given by the city for the slow pace of delivery is that they do not have the finances.
Now we see that the finances are there, but the political will is absent. This crisis in the city and mal administration compels us to call for the removal of Ian Nielsen as the Mayco member responsible for finances and his replacement with a fit and proper person to administer the finances.
The situation in the City is a crisis and requires immediate intervention by the Finance Ministry and Salga and we now formally make the call for an intervention. We are concerned about the disregard shown to the people of the City and there desperate needs, and the ANC will be considering a march to the Mayor's office to reinforce our demands. The COSATU has been equally outraged by this mismanagement and sabotaging of delivery and will call a strike against the City to force urgent action in the interest of working Families.
Joint statement issued by the ANC and COSATU Western Cape, July 13 2011
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