It took at least five hours for Nelson Mandela Bay councillors to finally get on with the business of the day such as passing the crucial adjustments budget which, by law, had to be adopted by Thursday.
In yet another meeting characterised by chaos, the councillors spent three hours arguing over whether or not convicted ANC councillor Bongo Nombiba was legally allowed in the council chamber.
They then proceeded to have a lengthy lunch and a series of caucus breaks, followed by an afternoon of threats of violence by Patriotic Alliance councillor Marlon Daniels against DA councillors Athol Trollip and Gustav Rautenbach.
The council salary bill costs ratepayers R74m a year.
It was only after 7pm that councillors eventually deliberated on the most critical matter of the day – the adjustments budget.
It had to be approved by the end of February to be in line with National Treasury guidelines.
It was eventually passed by the majority of councillors at 8.30pm, without the backing of the DA, COPE, ACDP and Patriotic Alliance.
It was, however, preceded by squabbles over where Victor Manyati – a DA councillor who has voted against his party several times – should be seated, leading to a screaming match and chairs being shoved around.
Minutes later, Daniels jumped from his seat, over the table and threatened to beat up Rautenbach for telling him to be quiet.
Later, he stormed from his seat, threatening to beat up Trollip for saying Daniels had private security guards.
Acting chief financial officer Jackson Ngcelwane was forced to rush through his presentation of the adjustments budget, given only 10 minutes to explain how the city planned to reprioritise its spending.
Ngcelwane said the R2bn capital budget needed to be spent speedily to ensure that the money was used and not sent back to the Treasury.
He reminded councillors of the delays experienced during the passing of the 2018/2019 budget on June 30 2018.
Ngcelwane said the city’s financial woes were exacerbated by an additional R9.8m meant for the smart grid initiative that the city received from the National Treasury on Wednesday.
Budget and treasury portfolio head Mkhuseli Mtsila pleaded with the opposition to support the budget, saying it was for the poorest of the poor.
“I wish to plead with this council to place the interest of the residents of the metro and put our differences aside.
“If we delay this, we will delay issues of planning.
“We need to make sure that we pass this adjustment budget,” Mtsila said.
“We have tried to balance this and not change anything fundamentally or radically.
“This budget is for the benefit of the residents of this city.”
Explaining the reasons behind the R74m budget deficit, Mtsila said councillors had to remember that the council had resolved to insource 212 additional security staff.
“The reality is that we take council resolutions, we have agreed to insource security people which cost about R50m and call centre workers.
“We have also realised that the budget deficit is also because of overtime.
“We need to make it a point that we create employment and take more people to be part of the municipality,” Mtsila said.
He said the R74m deficit was not all bad as other countries had deficits that ran into billions. Mtsila said he was concerned about the low spending rate of departments, which was sitting at an average 34%.
“Departments are spending less. If departments are underspending it’s service delivery that is struggling,” he said.
“Departments also need to stop this hockey-stick effect of spending backwards.”
He said plans were under way to give the budget monitoring committee powers to act on departments with low spending rates.
DA councillor Retief Odendaal said the city’s deficit was moving in the wrong direction.
“We need to identify savings,” he said. “The National Treasury knows that we are one of the poor metros.
“We are on the wrong trajectory.”
Odendaal warned it would be virtually impossible to spend the rest of the capital budget within the current financial year, which ends on June 30.
“It makes no sense to embark on new projects halfway through the year.
“This is also not an administrative process.
“If it were, all parties would’ve been consulted.
“This budget is influenced by political decisions.
“It makes no sense,” he said. The DA walked out of the meeting after the vote on the budget. Meanwhile, mayor Mongameli Bobani, who was to face a motion of no confidence brought by Daniels – which had still not been debated by 10.20pm, said that the budget spoke to the needs of poor people.
“We are unapologetic about attending to the poor.
“Come May or June, our budget will speak to the poor,” Bobani said.
Some of the other items on the agenda which were passed included amending the organogram for the municipality’s tourism department.
This was rejected by the DA, which argued that the insourcing of the 23 staff, on sixmonth contracts, would strain the municipality’s finances and further bloat the city’s wage bill.
The staff were retrenched by Nelson Mandela Bay Tourism in January.
The EFF, PA, UF and the ANC, however, insisted that the insourcing of the staff was well within the prescripts of the law.
DA councillor Annette Lovemore said the insourcing would plunge the city into a crisis.
“The decision to insource the NMB tourism staff was in principle and not immediately,” she said.
“The mayor’s recommendation to insource staff that did not have existing job descriptions would be unlawful.
“We can’t put people in a position that is not on the staff establishment,” Lovemore said.
DA councillor Nqaba Bhanga said insourcing more people into the municipality would bloat the wage bill.
“We must apply our mind on the Municipal Structure and Systems Act when we make these decisions.
“This is illegal. We are disbanding an entity that is key in promoting our city,” Bhanga said.
Other items that were passed were that the IPTS upgrade for the Njoli route will be placed on hold and the city will focus on developing the Uitenhage and Despatch route first.
A motion by ACDP councillor Lance Grootboom to immediately implement the R5.8m cleaning and greening project was also approved.