Tabling of 2021/2022 Adjustment Budget
19 August 2021
Council Speech by the City's Executive Mayor, Alderman Dan Plato
Council Speech delivered by Dan Plato, Executive Mayor of Cape Town at the tabling of the 2021/2022 Adjustment Budget.
Speaker, fellow councillors, colleagues, members of the public, guests, media, and to all the listeners on our new YouTube livestream, good morning.
Before we start today, I would appreciate a moment of silence for all those who have lost a loved one, from our city colleagues, to all members of the public, due to Covid-19 or any other cause. Some of our city colleagues and councillors are currently in hospital as a result of the virus and our thoughts and prayers are with them.
Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to announce that Councillor Rob Quintas has officially been appointed as Mayoral Committee Member of Transport. Cllr Quintas is the Ward Councillor for Hout Bay and has also served on the Environmental and Spatial Planning Committee, which allowed him to get a high level view of the transport environment in the City of Cape Town.
Cllr Quintas was acknowledged by the City Speaker in 2019 as councillor of the year, an indication of his hard work and dedication to serving with excellence. As Ward Councillor for Hout Bay, Cllr Quintas has served this community with care and diligence over the years, and will continue to be available to the residents of Imizamo Yethu, Hangberg, Llandudno, and the Valley. I wish him well with his new portfolio.
Speaker, since this global pandemic started, it has placed a strain on all of us, in one way or another, in our personal lives, as well as in the workplace. I am proud that as the City of Cape Town, we were able to rapidly adapt our systems to incorporate a new way of working that allowed us to continue delivering services while limiting service interruptions as much as possible.
While some backlogs developed due to the national regulations preventing our staff from working during the height of the first stage of hard lockdown, I am pleased that we have pulled together and dealt with those backlogs, with the majority of our services returning to normality.
While we are here today to discuss the tabling of the 2021/2022 adjustment budget, I want to first use this opportunity to call on all residents who are eligible to get the Covid-19 vaccine to please go and get it. I understand that some of our residents are scared of the vaccine, and have read a lot of misinformation on social media, with stories on Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp that tell them all kinds of horror stories. If these stories were really true, then ask yourself why millions of doctors and healthcare workers around the world have already had the jab? 1.8 billion people in the world are already fully vaccinated. 9,5 million of those are South African.
Please call your GP if you’re not sure about getting the vaccine. I’d rather trust my doctor than someone I don’t know on Facebook or Twitter. I’ve been vaccinated and I am pleading with our residents to please get their jab too.
When your loved ones end up in hospital and can’t breathe and have to be put into a coma and intubated and you spend weeks hoping and praying that they come out of it, but they don’t, and they die because of the virus, then it will be too late.
Most of us should have mild symptoms if we get infected, but nobody knows how you are going to react and even if you have mild symptoms, you could give the virus to someone who has the worst reaction. Young, healthy people are dying of this virus. I know many of you are scared, so please, pick up the phone and talk to your doctor about getting vaccinated, don’t rely on nameless voice-notes, misrepresented and selective quotes and stats, and blatant misinformation. We can get back to a sense of normality if we all play our part.
Speaker, with regards to today’s main agenda item, I hereby table the adjustment budget today. I want to applaud each and every city official for ensuring that the proposed budget amendments will have no detrimental impact on the provision of basic services. The primary reason for the recommendation to adopt an August 2021 adjustments budget is the roll-over of carry-over commitments from the 2020/21 financial year, and administrative transfers/virements of budgetary provisions.
Section 28(2)(e) of the Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA) states that an adjustments budget may authorise the spending of funds that were unspent at the end of the past financial year where the under-spending could not reasonably have been foreseen at the time to include projected roll-overs when the annual budget for the current year was approved by the council.
Operating a major metro like Cape Town under a global pandemic and managing the finances as efficiently as we have is worth pausing to reflect on to appreciate the magnitude of what we have accomplished.
The national lockdown declared on 23 March 2020, when all citizens (except essential services) were ordered to stay home for a period of 21 days commencing at midnight on 26 March 2020, would forever be considered as the start of the devastating effect on an already vulnerable economy. As the country eased in and out of restrictions levels, in riding the first and then second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, municipalities had to adapt to the impact of the economy on its operations and the impact of the affordability levels of its consumers.
The 2020/21 approved budget included an amended, viable financial plan (from the initial March 2020 tabled budget) over the short to medium term, taking the variables and impacts emanating from the Covid-19 pandemic into account.
The 2020/21 budget was thus prepared with much uncertainty on how the Covid-19 pandemic would affect consumer’s payment behaviour, but the City has managed to maintain a high average collection ratio despite the devastating effects Covid-19 had on the economy. The collection rate outcome for the first five months of the 2020/21 financial year remained strong, showing higher outcomes when compared to the budgeted collection rates. The 2020/21 budgeted collection rates for all trading services were therefore revised upwards in the adjustments budget following the mid-year review and assessment process. This upward prediction - although not at pre-Covid-19 levels and due to debt management actions resuming - followed through to the 2021/22 financial year.
In terms of our Capital Budget, it is proposed that an amount of R 513 915 000 (513 million rand) be rolled over. The bulk of these funds (R253.3 million) will go towards the Water and Waste Department which had procured a number of additional vehicles and equipment that could not be delivered before the end of the financial year due to the pandemic, as well as major repair costs due to serious vandalism to city infrastructure that has affected the service quality experienced by our residents.
Speaker, I want to conclude my comments on the adjustment budget in saying that I am truly proud of the way in which the City has navigated this pandemic, and I want to thank our residents for their patience when there were unavoidable lapses in services. I also want to thank our residents for supporting us through maintaining their rates payments as we simply would not be able to maintain this sound financial position and keep delivering services without it.
As I close off today, I want to once again draw attention to the gender-based violence that continues to terrorise our communities. Every year we mark Women’s Day and we call on our communities to pause for a moment and appreciate the women in our lives, and all that they do for us. I want to call on the fathers in our communities to raise your boys right. Teach them about respect and that it is their job to protect the women in their lives. Teach them that there is never any excuse that can justify lifting a hand to a woman.
It is today’s young boys that are tomorrow’s men and the fathers, and mothers, and grannies and grandpas, and uncles and aunties, all have the chance to make sure that the young boys of today grow up right. We can break this cycle of violence and it starts with the young boys of today.
In closing, I thank government as a whole, national and provincial, for the continued cooperation during these trying times. Speaker, please note that I will have to leave council a few minutes later today in order to attend a meeting with National Minister of Transport, Fikile Mbalula. We are meeting about the opening of the Central Line and the relocation of those who are currently illegally occupying the line. Deputy Mayor will stand in for me in my absence.
Thank you
End
Published by:
City of Cape Town, Media Office
