Metro bags R200m cash windfall

● National Treasury rewards city for good spending performance in 2017/2018 financial year

The Nelson Mandela Bay municipality has received a R200m cash boost from the National Treasury that must be spent by June 30.

The money was a reward for the city’s good spending performance in the 2017/2018 financial year.

The R200m from the Treasury is money that other municipalities or government departments could not spend by the end of the financial year.

While the city has yet to discuss how the money will be spent, departments that have been consulted include human settlements, infrastructure and engineering, electricity and energy, public health and sports and recreation.

The announcement was made at a budget and treasury committee meeting held on Monday.

Acting city manager Peter Neilson said he hoped that some of the money would go towards improving infrastructure.

“I have had a lot of the MMCs and the mayor approaching me with how allocations were done and where was the political oversight.

“It is ridiculous not to see any of this money allocated to previously disadvantaged areas,” he said.

“I don’t know when council will sit but we have to reprioritise projects before Friday’s council meeting, which doesn’t give us enough time.”

Chief operating officer Mzwakhe Clay warned the report was not final.

“When the windfall came last year, politicians asked who was responsible for the money.

“It’s important for our political principals to know that these are proposals from the administration that will assist in taking decisions; it’s not final,” Clay said.

Clay said the draft allocations had looked at timeframes and how long it would take to spend the money.

“We looked at projects that are already running so the process doesn’t include procurement,” he said.

“I want to emphasise that whenever these types of things come the administration needs to do the paperwork and hand it over to the politicians.”

DA councillor Retief Odendaal, who was budget and treasury political head for the 2017/2018 period, said the windfall money was as a result of the then DA-led coalition spending 100% of its urban settlements development grant.

He said the DA administration spent the last R178m windfall money from the Treasury to upgrade five informal settlements, eradicate some bucket toilets, provide serviced sites, tar roads, upgrade 64 public open spaces, and upgrade water and sanitation infrastructure.

In a statement, Odendaal said: “The ruling ANC/EFF/ UDM coalition of corruption will, however, not be able to spend the latest additional R200m received from the National Treasury.”

He said, as of February 2019, the ANC-led coalition had spent just 30% of its capital budget for this financial year.

“If the city does not utilise all of this additional funding by the end of the 2018/2019 financial year, it will be forfeited to the National Treasury,” he said.

At Monday’s committee meeting, ANC councillor Rory Riordan congratulated all those involved.

“I want to say congratulations to the officials and councillor Odendaal for getting additional windfall two years in a row.

“It’s no doubt that you have worked hard to ensure that budget is spent.”