Bay gets R200m windfall boost from Treasury

The Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality has received a R200m cash boost from the national Treasury that must be spent by June 30.

The money was a reward for the city's good spending performance over the 2017-18 financial year.

The R200m from the Treasury is money that other municipalities or government departments could not spend by the end of the financial year.

This was announced at a budget and treasury committee meeting held on Monday.

DA councillor Retief Odendaal, who was budget and treasury political head for the 2017-18 period, said this was as a result of the then DA-lead coalition spending 100% of its urban settlements development grant.

He said they spent the last R178m windfall money from the Treasury to upgrade five informal settlements, eradicate some of the bucket toilets, provide serviced sites, tar roads, upgrade 64 public open spaces, and upgrading water and sanitation infrastructure.

In a statement, Odendaal said: "The ruling ANC/EFF/UDM coalition of corruption will, however, not be able to spent the latest additional R200 million received from National Treasury.

"As of February 2019, the ANC-led coalition of corruption had only spent 30% of its capital budget for the current financial year.

"If the city does not utilise all of this additional funding by the end of the 2018/19 financial year, it will be forfeit to the national Treasury," Odendaal said.

At Monday's committee meeting, ANC councillor Rory Riordan congratulated all those involved.

"I want to say congratulations to the officials and councillor Odendaal for getting additional windfall two years in a row. It's no doubt that you have worked hard to ensure that budget is spent."