Cllr Cilliers Brink 5 March 2024
EXECUTIVE MAYOR OF TSHWANE
- Budget adjustment passed
- Tshwane ya Tima
- Progress in ending load-shedding
- Partnerships to improve service delivery
- The Loftus Factor
Partnerships to do together what we cannot do alone
Last week, the City of Tshwane was the only metro in Gauteng that was able to pass its budget adjustment by the statutory deadline of the last day of February. Like in Johannesburg, our coalition government has a slim majority in the municipal council (that votes on the budget). And like Ekurhuleni, our Council meeting was also disrupted by councillors. However, order was restored in the City of Tshwane and a vote took place. This is a marker of progress that includes a more mature and stable political leadership.
The budget adjustment included some painful cuts to expenditure, the result of the City’s poor financial performance in the first six months of the financial year up to December 2023. That underperformance was, in turn, the result of the violent unprotected strike that broke out in August 2023 and continued into November 2023. It is impossible to drive an aggressive credit disconnection campaign or make important institutional improvements while your waste removal trucks are burning in the streets.
As we made clear last month, our financial recovery plan will be updated. Our strategy is to collect as much as we can on debt owing to the City, starting with the Top 1 000 consumers. And so, you will see that #TshwaneYaTima is back with a bang. My MMCs and I will join the City Manager and other senior officials to ensure that credit disconnections happen.
Collecting on our debtors book will buy us time to fix key aspects of the City’s tax administration. This includes installing as many prepaid electricity meters as possible, making sure that bills are accurate and that billing disputes are dealt with expeditiously. Billing days have been held in Soshanguve and Mamelodi, and will be held in other communities. Our message is clear: We thank residents who pay their bills, we will go after those who do not pay their bills and if you struggle to pay your bill, please make an arrangement with the City.
As we prepare a new budget for the financial year beginning in July 2024, our focus will be on controlling the City’s costs – in other words getting maximum value for taxpayers’ money and ensuring that our tariffs for electricity, water, sanitation and waste collection cover those (reasonable) costs. To ensure that costs are reasonable, I have told the City Manager to be relentless in weeding out all corruption and irregularity in the Supply Chain Management Division (tenders and storerooms).
Last month, the City received 39 responses from independent power producers, which will inform our next moves on energy independence. We want to procure 1 000 MW of the City’s total need of about 2 600 MW in the next two years. Like Cape Town, we want the capital city to skip a few stages of load-shedding. And as you can imagine, 1 000 MW of a total use of 2 600 MW promises considerable relief to residents. This alternative energy will have to be the following:
- Dispatchable: In other words, capable of being “moved” from source of generation to point of use.
- Affordable: There is no use in paying a great deal more for alternative power than what Eskom currently charges.
- Clean: Although coal and gas will remain an important part of South Africa’s energy mix, we must lay the groundwork for a transition to clean, renewable energy.
We aim to get the 1 000 MW from three sources. First, powering up the Rooiwal and Pretoria West Power Stations in partnership with the public, an approach which already has the approval of Council. Second, procuring from independent power producers, a process that will be informed by the 39 responses to our Request for Information. Third, buying electricity from so-called producer consumers, including households and business with excess rooftop solar.
Building each of these sources of alternative energy constitutes a project of its own and a lot of work still needs to be done, including technical assessments of our distribution grid. But we are breaking ground and we are laying the foundation for greater independence from Eskom. So far, the response has been overwhelmingly positive. Last year, the Minister of Electricity delivered a clear message at the Tshwane Mayoral Energy Summit: The more energy Gauteng metros can generate on their own, the less pressure on Eskom and the country.
This week, the City of Tshwane signed a cooperation agreement with the civil society organisation AfriForum, giving effect to our whole-of-society approach. AfriForum branches are eager to help the City take care of communities, including cutting grass, repairing potholes and assisting with other services. Our approach has been to welcome to the assistance, and to agree on a system and rules of how this will be done.
Local government is under tremendous pressure. Aside from the effects of cadre deployment, state capture and national economic mismanagement, the pressure on municipalities grows by the day. Not only do we have to protect our service infrastructure against criminal assault, we have to defend land earmarked for service delivery against unlawful occupation. And in terms of national legislation, the City bears the lion’s share of the responsibility for providing alternative accommodation in cases of lawful eviction. Municipalities need all the help we can get.
This approach is completely consistent with our model of participatory government and agreements that the City has with other organisations, including OUTsurance (traffic pointsmen), Hennops River Rival (cleaning our natural water systems) and SoulBent (clean-ups in Atteridgeville and Pretoria West). The risks that arise from these partnerships can be managed and are in any event lesser than the risk we face if we shut our door to partnerships.
At the time of writing this, we still await the signed audit opinion of the Auditor-General, and so I promise that my next newsletter will contain an update on this front. So, while we wait for that, let me congratulate the Vodacom Bulls on their spectacular victory over the DHL Stormers at Loftus on Saturday, 2 March 2024. The atmosphere at Loftus was electric, and so my amateur view is that the Loftus Factor is what won the game for our boys. May residents draw inspiration from this spectacular 22-40 win.