Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality Executive Mayor, Mxolisi Siyonzana says the metro will be prioritising service delivery in the 2022/2023 financial year.
He says the budget for outsourced services is set at almost R600-million to address critical service delivery areas. These include refuse removal and the cleaning of the city.
Siyonzana was addressing the Mangaung council during the tabling of the metro budget vote in Bloemfontein. The embattled municipality has been grappling with poor service delivery and political instability.
National Intervention Team to help embattled Mangaung Metro Municipality
The municipality is currently under national intervention after failing to implement its financial recovery plan.
“Contracted Services budget increased by 4.71% from the approved Adjustment Budget allocation of R568 564 million in 2021/22 to a new allocation of R 595 360 million. The allocation for the two outer years of the MTREF period is R617 864 million and R 637 497 million respectively. The increase is due to the intention to address the service delivery priorities and the cleanliness of our City. It caters for litter picking & street cleaning, maintenance of parks, cleaning of entrances, tree cutting, repairs and maintenance of roads, 10 unblocking of sewer reticulation infrastructure, attending to water losses due to burst pipes, leakages, maintenance of service delivery vehicles and implementation of revenue enhancement strategies,” says Siyonzana.
Meanwhile, the adoption of the budget was riddled with confusion among council members over the number of councillors who abstained from voting.
Some African National Congress (ANC) councillors called for a re-count after claims that some members were unable to vote because they were confused.
However, opposition parties accused the ANC of delaying the process because of factional battles. This as some ANC members abstained from voting.
Discussion on the national intervention for the troubled Mangaung Metro [22 April 2022]
