The former head administrator of Tshwane metro, Mpho Nawa, says it was necessary to extend the budget of the municipality by R4.4bn because it did not cater for the lockdown period and other expenditure.
This was in response to claims by new Tshwane mayor Randall Williams that the administrators appointed in March had decimated the metro's finances at an alarming rate, plunging it into further debt of more than R4.4bn.
Williams said the metro went from having an operating surplus of R284m to debt between April and June this year. Williams was elected the new mayor after the Supreme Court of Appeal set aside the decision of Gauteng co-operative governance MEC Lebogang Maile to place the municipality under administration in March.
Maile appointed Nawa to oversee the running of the troubled metro after its council could not sit and form a quorum on several occasions. Nawa was part of a 10-member team of administrators that replaced the council, which was disbanded for being dysfunctional.
Nawa told Sowetan yesterday only the auditor-general could make a finding on the decision to extend the budget after scrutinising the metro's expenditures. He insisted that there was nothing untoward in how the money was spent.
“You need to remember that when the municipality was placed under administration, there was no adjustment budget. All the money we used in the city went towards labour and bench-marking. Technically, there is nothing wrong with what we did. He [Williams] is not the AG, so he doesn't know exactly what happened,” Nawa said.
Nawa said there was an expenditure of R1.7bn, of which R1.5bn related to debt and this made it necessary for the budget to be extended because it did not cater for the lockdown period. “The AG will not find fault in the books because the city was collapsing,” Nawa said.
He said all the expenditure incurred during their tenure as administrators would be contained in a report to be presented to the MEC.
During the announcement of members of the mayoral executive committee in Pretoria yesterday, Williams described the municipality’s financial situation as dire. “We scrutinised the pre-audited financial results for the 2019/20 financial year and learnt that this surplus has been eroded, and the city is now operating in a significant deficit of R4.4bn,” Williams said.
To mitigate the expenditure, Williams said the city would immediately reduce spending on consulting and contracted services and that their focus would be on basic service delivery.
“Spending on catering in the City of Tshwane will cease. Free lunches are over. No matter the length of the meeting or the formality of the engagement the city will not be purchasing food. Events and conferences will have their budgets reduced and channelled to core service delivery,” Williams said.
“All international travel will be restricted. I intend to immediately begin reviewing and appropriating these budgets to direct them to core service delivery. Travel abroad will only be considered when funded by external partners or donors.”
Williams admitted that the task of turning the municipality around was daunting but that he was confident in the members appointed to his mayoral council.
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