Bay service delivery improves

More than half the service delivery targets set by the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality were achieved during the first six months of the current 2014-15 financial year.

However, the metro only managed to spend 35.9% of its capital budget on infrastructure and other developmental projects by the end of last year.

Boasting about the municipality’s mid-term budget and performance report, mayor Ben Fihla said there was an improvement in the number of areas that had received services from the metro between July and December.

He has, however, raised concerns about refuse collection in townships which have not yet visibly improved.

While Fihla hailed the municipality for surpassing its target of building 335 RDP houses over the six months by building 746 houses, its target for the year is a mere 835. This is a far cry from previous years when it built about 3 000 houses a year.

The metro relies on money allocated to it by Bhisho to tackle its 80 000 housing backlog.

-Rochelle de Kock