eThekwini Municipality budget consultations: IFP demands policy reforms for residents
Image: Leon Lestrade / Independent Newspapers
While the eThekwini Municipality leaders crisscross the wards for the Integrated Development Plan (IDP) consultations, a local councillor is calling for policy reforms before the budget is passed.
Dr Jonathan Annipen, an Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) councillor in eThekwini, has submitted a plethora of demands to the municipality revenue department's policy developers, calling for unprecedented policy reforms. These policies could be voted on with the budget at the next council meeting later this month.
The deadline for residents, businesses, and stakeholders to submit their inputs into the Draft Budget and IDP, R64.2 billion operating budget, and R7.1 billion capital budget for the 2025/26 financial year is May 17, 2025.
Annipen said residents will only be able to cope with the proposed tariff increases as spelt out in the 2025/26 budget if major changes are made to the city's budget-related policies.
'Central among them are the indigent support application and the credit control and debt recovery policies,' he said.
Annipen said the city's social package in its current form simply exists to meet a legislative requirement and, by doing so, ticks the budgetary requirements set out by the Municipal Financial Management Act (MFMA) and the National Treasury.
'These policies do not speak to the growing needs of the residents of eThekwini. Needless to say, substantial amendments need to be made to ensure these policies are adaptable to the people of the city in the context of some of the socio-economic challenges faced by our people,' he said.
According to Annipen, residents are struggling to meet their financial commitments to the municipality, forcing them to live without basic services, such as water and electricity, or resort to illegal measures like tampering with the city's infrastructure to bypass their electricity and water metering systems.
He stated that the proposals made by the IFP are practical and add significant value to the otherwise opaque, ambiguous, and outdated policies enforced by the municipality.
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Annipen said this also strengthens the existing policy framework articulated in the existing standard operating procedures and terms of reference of eThekwini's budget-related policies, but primarily seeks to reduce some of the causes of unauthorised, irregular, wasteful, and fruitless expenditure while reducing debtors' book by unparalleled markers.
He added that ultimately, the amendments they are suggesting will reduce the capital amounts written off by the city, dispose of historic debt, and secure a far higher revenue collection proportion than what is presently being illustrated by the city.
'Our recommendations have been formulated through personal interactions with residents and first-hand experiences lived out by the ordinary people of eThekwini. We call on residents, lobby groups, ratepayer bodies, and other civic society agencies to join us in this fight for policy change in order to provide relief to the marginalised masses within this metro.'
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