Underspending hits service delivery

IN spite of our well founded concerns regarding expenditure against our approved municipal annual budgets, we are concerned that there still appears to be no genuine willingness on the part of the governing party to heed our many warnings in this regard.

The DA has repeatedly raised the matter during the last financial year that our spending on the capital budget would not reach the desired 100%. As a direct consequence of this startling lapse of good judgment, the year-end report revealed a total spend of only 76.1% of the available capital budget, leaving a shocking R402-million unspent.

At the budget and treasury meeting of July 31 we were informed that the figure had increased to 85.4% spend on capital budget with the final figure expected to be around 87%. Even if this proves to be true, we as a metro have to face up to the cold fact that we have still ended the financial year with nearly R220-million lying unspent.

If one has to examine the facts, the following reasons emerge as some of the key contributors to this unacceptable state of affairs:

• Slow procurement processes on the part of the administration, delaying projects;

• Insufficient capacity within the institution to implement the budget properly and timeously;

• Insufficient capacity regarding project management again due to manpower;

• Continued manpower challenges in providing service delivery;

• The current procurement plan is a poorly constructed and implemented document without clear timelines. This requires an urgent overhaul so that it is concise, to the point, with specific timeframes and which allows for a quicker flow for the processing and completion of capital projects;

• Inadequate project management is being conducted to ensure the quality of work and the timeous completion of all capital projects.

We willingly accept that some funding only becomes available two or three months after the start of each financial year. This is no excuse however – if our metro was operating at optimum efficiency, these funds could easily be spent.

A spend of under 95% on the capital budget is simply unacceptable not only to the DA, but to each and every resident of this city. How many bucket toilets could have been eradicated with this unspent money, and what infrastructure upgrades and maintenance could have been done that would have eased the daily burden of so many of our residents who struggle daily as a result of the slow pace of service delivery?

We view the continued underspending with a great deal of concern, particularly given the many areas that are desperately in need of service delivery and further given the magnitude of our infrastructure and maintenance backlogs. This issue needs decisive action.

Angelo Dashwood, DA spokesperson on budget and treasury, Nelson Mandela Metro Municipality