By Nkhensani Chauke
The Portfolio Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs has urged the City of Joburg to present a comprehensive turnaround plan to address challenges impacting its governance and service delivery.
This follows an oversight meeting between the metro’s leadership and the Portfolio Committee on COGTA on Thursday.
The committee received briefings from Gauteng MEC for COGTA, Jacob Mamabolo, and the Office of the Auditor-General, represented by Sipho Motebele.
During the visit, the committee also identified unauthorized, irregular, fruitless, and wasteful expenditures as ongoing challenges within the CoJ.
Committee Chairperson Zweli Mkhize raised concerns over political instability in the Joburg metro, which has seen six mayoral changes within three years.
“The committee noted the Auditor-General’s findings that these leadership changes have not significantly influenced audit outcomes. However, it has called for a detailed report on how the metro manages its hung council,” Mkhize said.
The committee also raised concerns about CoJ’s financial challenges and under-spending on its infrastructure grant.
“It noted that the municipality is running a R3 billion deficit in the current year, which signals significant challenges in its revenue collection,” Mkhize said.
“Another concern for the committee was that the municipality underspends on its infrastructure grant and has an outstanding debt of R58 billion owed to it by various entities.”
Mkhize reiterated the urgency of improving debt collection, warning the CoJ to focus on revenue generation and avoid depleting its reserves, as financial stability is critical for the city’s growth.
“The committee believes much work must be done to support this municipality. We have asked the MEC to supervise the provision of various reports requested by the committee. We also asked the municipality to present plans that demonstrate efforts to address its challenges, including managing its massive R58 billion debt book,” he said.
The committee further requested solutions to address water losses caused by infrastructure deterioration and illegal connections.
Mkhize raised concern over maladministration and corruption.
He also raised concerns about the deterioration of the inner-city buildings, some of which have been hijacked and contribute to gang-related criminal activity.
“The committee demanded a plan from the municipality to address inner-city decay, where hijacked buildings foster gang criminality,” he said.
COGTA has requested comprehensive reports from the CoJ, including strategies to recover outstanding debts and address its financial and infrastructural challenges.
Joburg mayor Dada Morero said: “This is a session that is taking stock of our current performance and where the City’s Strategic imperatives and priorities as agreed in the Mayoral Lekgotla held over the past two weeks.”
“We are making strides to turn around Johannesburg in line with our constitutional mandate of developmental local government as enshrined in the objects of local government. We welcome this oversight visit and view it as part of reinforcing the District Development Model (DDM) which was launched by President of the Republic of South Africa, His Excellency Cyril Matamela Ramaphosa.”
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