Once, there was a Member of the Mayoral Committee responsible for Finance. This MMC believed that ethical conduct, as expected of others, applied only to them and never himself. As this dull tale goes, the MMC decided not to abide by Council’s ethical standards, chose not to declare his interests and, subsequently, conflicts of interest with individuals closely associated with him.

Lo and behold, a forensic investigation found him to have been involved in a price fixing scheme working alongside a city service provider. In the process, the now disgraced MMC betrayed the people of his City and his sworn duty.

Sadly, this story isn’t a work of fiction, but the story of Mr Rabelani Dagada.

Late last year, Dagada was dismissed from his role as MMC of Finance in the City of Johannesburg by Mayor Herman Mashaba, following the findings of a forensic report alleging his misconduct.

Opting to jump ship rather than face further scrutiny via disciplinary proceedings, the disgraced MMC decided to resign from Council and from the Democratic Alliance before either institution could conclude their proceedings against him.

Much like anyone who has had the misfortune of navigating a bad break-up, despite the City’s efforts to focus on bringing Diphetogo, fundamental change, to communities and the lives of residents, Dagada has sought the City’s attention by spreading misinformation regarding the administration’s financial position; claiming the City is on its way to financial ruin.

It’s a tired trick and one most employed by the ANC who seemingly are now Dagada’s new best friends.

Indeed, Dagada himself used to abhor the ANC’s scare monger tactic, describing it as ‘’baseless,’’ in many of his statements on the subject.

In fact, he is quoted as describing fabrications regarding the City’s finances, made by the ANC’s Parks Tau as “…nothing more than an attempt at reviving Councillor Parks Tau’s political career from the ashes."

The same Dagada held little love for the former administration as well, characterising the ANC’s mismanagement of the City’s finances as one characterised by ‘’…an environment of chaos and disorder, all of which allowed a culture of corruption to fester and flourish." 

His words, not mine.

Dagada’s newly found adoration of the ANC and idol worship of Parks Tau is a jaw dropping U-turn in his convictions. However, if we are honest with ourselves, it’s also not entirely unsurprising in the circumstances. After all, birds of a feather and all that.

So what is the true financial position of the City?

The malicious ‘’prophecies’’ and misinformation regarding the city’s financial position, some even alleging the City wouldn’t make its June payroll run, are nothing more than hot air. This includes Dagada’s own musings (see article here).

Not only have these false Delphian oracles’ prophecies not materialised, but the City continues to strengthen its financial position.

Central to achieving our improved performance has been the intensified efforts in revenue optimisation. Since coming into office, we have placed our focus on those who can pay but do not and working with officials to eliminate corruption within the revenue space. These efforts saw preliminary revenue levels increase from R32.4 Billion in 2016/17 to R35.2 Billion in 2017/18.

This is the biggest increase recorded in the City in a year that did not include a new general valuations roll. Included in this increase was the achievements of Operation Buya Mthetho which resulted in the collection of R581 million.

Billing challenges, which were presided over by the ANC for decades, are being faced head on by the new multi-party government; billing queries have reduced by 100 queries per day.

This cascades to a reduction of billing queries from an average of 8000 in a month to an average of 6000 billing queries in a month. The reduction in the level of queries received is a reflection of improved quality of billing and progressive efforts to turnaround from the billing crisis.

Adding to this, monthly revenue collection in the City has remained at an average of R2.8 billion per month for the 2017/18 financial year, buoyed by significantly improved collection efforts in the second half of the financial year.

Even with respect to the City’s expenditure level, the City has recorded, in its most up to date preliminary numbers, a 91% expenditure level of its Capital Budget, up from 78% in the 2016/17 financial year. The City has traditionally always had a hockey stick pattern of capital expenditure, reflecting marked increase in spending in the last quarter of the year as projects come to completion. The current year’s spending pattern has been no different.

In terms of grant funding, the City has excelled achieving 100% expenditure in its expenditure of the Urban Settlements Development Grant (USDG). USDG makes up the vast majority of our grant funding, and supports municipalities work in infrastructure development. This is particularly critical given the massive infrastructural backlogs impacting service delivery in Johannesburg.

Of particular note is the performance of the Housing Department which managed to spend 89% of its capital budget and 100% of USDG funding.

These figures are set to appear in a report coming before Council in the month of September.

Further to this, the City has successfully paid back over R6 Billion in loans which became due in the 2017/18 financial year. Upon entering office, the multi-party government was saddled with debt levels close to the maximum levels prescribed by National Treasury.

While these numbers are subject to the changes arising from the audit process with the Auditor General, there can be no doubt that these changes represent sizeable improvements from the mess left by past administrations.

The achievement of these various improvements in the City’s financial position is something which represents the continued drive for performance by the multi-party government.

The notable improvements from the levels achieved in the 2017/18 financial year are promising, but we cannot afford to regard even this to be good enough.

It does, however, demonstrate strong upward movement in our performance, demonstrating that we will continue to improve the City’s performance to the benefit of our residents.

Luyanda Mfeka is the spokesperson to Mayor Herman Mashaba. Twitter: @lu_Mfeka