Democratic Alliance (DA) Tshwane mayoral candidate Randall Williams says the party has had to clean up the finances of the Tshwane Municipality when taking office over from the African National Congress (ANC).
Williams was speaking while inspecting a multi-billion rand social housing project built by the DA-lead municipality in Marabastad, Pretoria.
Williams, who has served as Mayor of Tshwane since late last year, says he is committed to dealing with the service delivery challenges facing the country’s capital including the well-documented problems with water in the Hammanskraal area.
“There are many challenges in the municipality; the deficit that I was talking about when we got into office on the 1st of November was R4.3 billion in 2016.
“We found almost a similar situation there was an almost R2 billion on the operating budget so every time we need to turn the city around financially, money does not grow on trees, we need to generate revenue and also to push that money into services for residents.
Another major issues we are tacking since 2016 and incidentally and this is the issue of Hammerskraal, it is a major challenge and Hammerskraal was identified already in council in 2004, yet nothing was done about it.”
In the video below is a 10-point plan to address City of Tshwane service delivery issues:
The capital was under administration for eight months last year after the provincial government dissolved the council when it failed to successfully hold council meetings, after African National Congress (ANC) and Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) councillors walked out, leaving them without a quorum.
Earlier this month, Gauteng MEC of Cooperative Governance Lebogang Maile said he will consult with Gauteng Premier David Makhura on the way forward after the Constitutional Court ruling that he must conduct an investigation into the cause of the council’s deadlock and dysfunctionality in the City of Tshwane.
The ConCourt’s majority judgment found the decision to place the city under administration was unlawful.
Maile says two minority judgments found the dissolution of the municipal council in the City of Tshwane was not inappropriate.
