Hooligan label misplaced

I REFER to The Herald of April 7, in which the municipality was nominated "Hooligan of the Day" due to the fact that it had not paid out the grants in aid to the organisations as recorded on the grants in aid listings, some of which are in dire need of these funds. The department responsible for processing the documentation is the corporate services department.

As a councillor serving on the grants in aid committee I can tell you these officials are efficient and very caring regarding the plight of the organisations on the grants in aid list. The real problem is:

The budget and treasury committee approved the grants in aid on November 1 last year, thereafter it needed our mayor's approval. On November 13 the budget and treasury committee's recommendation was deferred by the mayor to allow a task team to revisit the committee's recommendations.

The mayor only approved the committee's recommendations on March 12 – four months later!

The printer/scanner/fax machine needed to complete the administrative tasks required to process payments of the grants was removed from the secretariat offices on March 14 by the supplier as the contract had expired and a new one had not yet been signed. It was awaiting legal services' input on the agreement.

The municipality is now in the process of sorting out the paperwork to get a new machine installed. However, the payment process will still take another four to six weeks to complete.

I would therefore suggest that the hooligan of the day needs to be our mayor and our legal services department.

This kind of scenario will not happen when the DA takes control of our metro in 2016.

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