JUST a week in the office as Executive Mayor of the City of Tshwane, Cilliers Brink says he is already working to resolve the financial mess in the city left by his predecessors.
Brink’s priorities are to stabilize the city’s finances by devising and implementing a bold recovery plan that focuses on the core functions of the municipality, including reducing the number of unscheduled water and electricity outages, invest in core infrastructure and mitigate the effects of load-shedding (reduce reliance on Eskom).
He also plans to improve basic services pertaining to pothole repairs, street light maintenance, grass cutting and public cleaning, and secure infrastructure assets, main roads and business nodes against criminals by improving the focus and functioning of the Tshwane Metro Police Department.
“We immediately got to work on the delayed adjustment budget for the 2022/23 financial year. We are facing very tight budget deadlines, so it was important for the team to hit the ground running.”
“During these engagements, we made various concerning discoveries that we plan to share with residents in due course,” he said.
He said he has received briefing on critical governance issues from the city manager Johann Mettler.”I have also met with staff from the Office of the Executive Mayor as it is important that the City has productive and motivated officials who can deliver services to all residents,” Brink said.
The office of the Auditor General (AG) tabled a damning report into the City of Tshwane’s finances, confirming over R10 billion in irregular expenditure.
The municipality also failed to fully disclose unauthorised, wasteful and fruitless expenditures worth billions of rands. This resulted in fruitless expenditure being understated by over R1 billion.INSIDE METROS
