NELSON MANDELA BAY - NMB MUNICIPALITY PASSES BIGGEST BUDGET TO DATE AT R15 BILLION

The Nelson Mandela Bay municipality today successfully passed a R15-billion budget, the biggest budget to date; that prioritises drought mitigation, basic service delivery, infrastructure maintenance as well as the protection of municipal assets.

The municipality is also acutely aware of the devastating impact that the ongoing covid-19 pandemic has had on residents, and, excluding electricity tariffs, has passed the lowest basket of tariff increases for Nelson Mandela Bay in more than a decade.

The 2021/2022 budget, which was approved by council, has a total operating budget of R13,395 billion and a total capital budget of R1,511 billion.

Efforts to mitigate the impact of the debilitating drought were front and centre, with water services being allocated a sizeable R517 million for drought mitigation measures. This figure is up by an additional R156 million from the draft budget tabled in March. This funding includes R45 million that will be spent on the KwaNobuhle Pump Station and R160 million for borehole projects.

The budget has also set aside R25,1 million, which will be used to establish an Intelligence Operations Centre, in an urgent bid to prevent further destruction of council properties and other infrastructure through vandalism. It is vital that the municipality takes appropriate steps to safeguard existing infrastructure, so that funds can be spent on building additional infrastructure, rather than replacing existing infrastructure that has been vandalised and looted.

The budget has a strong focus on ensuring that basic services return to the city, while keeping rates increases as low as possible.

There is a strong pro-poor element to the budget, aimed to address the needs of the City’s most neglected communities. Over R2,58 billion has been budgeted over the Medium-Term Revenue and Expenditure Framework (MTREF), of which just short of R800 million will be spent in the 2021/2022 financial year.

All attempts have been made to spare residents from excessive rates increases, as the city is well aware of the devastating blow to the economy, and the livelihoods of its residents, that the Covid-19 pandemic has had.

The municipality has already successfully postponed the municipal valuation roll’s implementation until 2022 – an act that will bring much needed relief to property owners as the value of their properties’, for property rates purposes, will remain unchanged for another year.

In keeping with this trend, tariff increases have been kept to the minimum and, with the exclusion of electricity tariff, Council has passed the lowest basket of tariff increases for Nelson Mandela Bay in more than a decade.

The electricity tariff will increase with an average of 14,59%, subject to the approval of NERSA, this will see the municipality absorbing some of the increased cost in the price of bulk electricity charged to the metro, the cost to the Metro going up by 17,8%.

Tariff increases are:

• Water – 6%

• Sanitation – 6%

• Refuse – 6%

• Property Rates – 5%

• Electricity – average of 14,59% (NERSA has increased the cost to metro by 17,8%)

The budget passed today will ensure that the coalition of good governance can keep getting things done by delivering services and improving the lives of all the residents of the Metro. With many basic service delivery contracts, that had been allowed to expire in the last two years, now being renewed – services such as grass cutting, streetlight repairs, pothole repairs and road markings will be kicked into high gear and be rolled out across the Metro.

Together we can take Nelson Mandela Bay forward again.