The City of Tshwane’s finance MMC, Jacqui Uys, has hailed the metro’s rates and levies as the most affordable as compared with the ones charged by its counterparts in the country.
Uys was speaking on Tuesday during a special council meeting at Tshwane House council chamber, where she tabled the City’s total R50.6 billion budget for the 2024/2025 financial year.
The budget comprises an operating budget of R48.3bn and a capital infrastructure investment budget of R2.3bn.
On the back of the current difficult economic climate and pressures faced by residents to make ends meet, Uys said “Tshwane has the most affordable rates and levies of any metro”.
The City, she said, has worked hard to keep rates and tariff increases within its control as low as possible.
For example, she said, the City has increased rates for water and sanitation by 5.9%, refuse removal by 5% and property rates by 5%.
Uys said: “Outside our control is the increase imposed on us by our bulk electricity supplier Eskom, leading to a 12% electricity increase.”
All residential properties are not charged any property rates for the first R150 000 of the value of the property.
This, Uys said, was part of the City’s efforts to support and offer social relief to residents.
“Furthermore, registered indigent households pay no property rates and continue to benefit from various social relief packages offered by the City,” she said.
With a total of 143 464 registered indigents, the City will provide 100kWh of electricity per month, 12 kilolitres of water per month and free weekly waste collection to the poorest of the poor as a much-needed relief.
Uys said the cost of the free services to the City is calculated at R1.6bn per year.
“With this budget we have also taken the policy decision to extend our pensioners rebate to be in place for three years without requiring our elderly residents to apply every year,” she said.
The City, she said, was geared towards stabilising its finances and one of its core priorities was to capacitate the revenue collection campaign called Tshwane Ya Tima.
A project management office has been established to take charge of each aspect of the City’s revenue value chain.
Uys said: “This includes rolling out prepaid electricity meters, dispatching bills, speedily resolving disputes, as well as implementing credit control and debt collection measures, such as issuing summons against debtors,”.
Almost 40 000 letters of demands were issued to defaulting consumers who run up high service bills and fail to pay the City.
Uys warned against illegal connections, saying the City will continue to work with communities and law enforcement to arrest offenders and impose hefty penalties.
At least R20 million budget was allocated to battery surge protection at sub-stations and R177m towards electricity network maintenance materials.
A budget of R20m is ring-fenced to reroute feeder cables to the Rua Vista and Doornpoort supply areas to prevent continuous outages.
“A total of R1m has been dedicated to the Gomsand and Claudius sub-stations for repairs to cabling in the sub-station yards and to stabilise the electricity supply in those areas. A further R54m is allocated to strengthening the 11kV cable network, with focus areas like panels in secondary sub-stations, network upgrades and strengthening overhead networks,” Uys said.
The City allocated R24.5m for the Tshwane public lighting programme to install new street lights and made a commitment to use 30% of this to replace current infrastructure with solar solutions to overcome vandalism and reduce costs on electricity purchases
The water and sanitation department is allocated approximately R536m while a budget of R150m will go towards the upgrade of Phase 1 of the Rooiwal Waste Water Treatment Works in this financial year.
Uys said the Rooiwal project is managed by the Development Bank of Southern Africa.
“The first R150m was already paid over to them and a further R150m will be prioritised in this budget,” she said.
The environment and agriculture management department has been allocated R2.079bn budget while the Community Safety cluster, which includes the emergency services department and the Tshwane metro police department, has been allocated a combined budget of R4.5bn.
The human settlements department has been allocated a combined operational and capital budget of R1.1bn, while the health department got R559m.
The shared services department, on the other hand, received a combined operational and capital budget of more than R3.5bn.
Another council sitting is expected to be convened on Thursday to debate the budget.
Pretoria News
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