City of Tshwane Mayor Randall William says the city will continue with efforts to restore its financial health. The City is currently operating on a deficit of over R4 billion.

The City claims it inherited the debt from administrators who took over for eight months in 2020 due to instability in the council.

In his maiden State of the City address, Williams attributed the debt to low revenue collection. The City is currently owed R17 billion by defaulting customers.

William says the council has had to review its long-term strategy and adopt short-term interventions to help it return to financial health as soon as possible.

He says the plans are to “reduce non-essential expenditure, enhance revenue and debt collection, implement virtual community outreach programmes to assist residents with revenue accounts as well as affordability arrangements to address arrears debt and the registration of qualifying indigents.”

He also promises to ensure consequence management through the financial disciplinary board and review contracts.

Vacancies to fill

In February, the City said it is considering which critical vacancies to fill while implementing an aggressive strategy to fix water infrastructure to prevent further costs caused by leaks and breakages.

The City says it also plans to reduce the overtime hours of staff and introduce a shift system.  Williams says the City is in a financial crisis.

“It has been three months since the Democratic Alliance returned to govern the City of Tshwane. Upon our return to office in the City, we discovered that not only did the ANC administrators who were in the office in the interim leave us with a R4 billion deficit for the last financial year ending 30 June 2020, but also left us with a shortfall of more than R2 billion for the current financial year that started on first July 2020,” says William.

City of Tshwane residents have been struggling to access water: