Bitou’s budget reality brought home

PLETTENBERG BAY NEWS – Bitou Mayor Dave Swart led a charm offensive over this year's budget at a Ward 2 report-back meeting on Tuesday 18 April - but he could not hide the inevitable.

Services and rates increases will hit the pockets of Plettenberg Bay residents significantly from July.

The service charge increases are:

water 6,8%;
sanitation 6,8%;
solid waste 17,2%;
electricity 15,7%; and
property rates 7,2%.

Supported by his top management team, including Municipal Manager Mbulelo Memani, Swart explained that Bitou is striving to instill stability and security to its administration by appointing competent and professional people "who can do the work".

In a presentation by acting financial director Felix Lötter, which gave a sobering assessment of the Bitou budget, the major expenditure of R105m will go to capital projects.

This includes vehicle fleet replacement of R17m - mainly for refuse removal equipment; water services infrastructure (R27m); electricity infrastructure (R23m); sanitation services R20m; and roads infrastructure R7m.

Increases 'excessive'

Plett Ratepayers chairperson Steve Pattinson said it was inevitable that service charges were going to increase in the face of inflation and after the Covid years, when tariffs were kept low due to economic pressure.

But, Bitou's annual tariff is R4,671 compared with Knysna's of R1,841.

"Such a large discrepancy raises concerns," said Pattinson following the release of the Ratepayers' report on waste management. "We have asked the municipality exactly how they arrived at the cost of service and the tariff figure and are awaiting their reply."

He said middle-income households will suffer an overall increase of about 11% for services and property rates. "This is excessive and should have been significantly mitigated by cost reductions, austerity measures as well as proper billing and improved revenue collection. The previous administration left our municipal cost structure fraught with inefficiency and waste and we have not seen sufficient progress in addressing these issues over the last 16 months," he said.

He did concede that kudos have to go to Mayor Dave Swart and his team for a well-presented budget and said it is clear that a return to financial health is the driving ambition.

Bitou Mayor Dave Swart

"However, until we see actual evidence of their commitment to cut costs and enhance revenue collection, coupled with a renewed drive to introduce performance and consequence management, our confidence in achieving the budget remains low." He also questioned one of the reasons the mayor gave for the increase in his preface to the budget, namely that provision was made for future rehabilitation of the landfill site in Mossel Bay.

"Yet we see no other town making such provisions in their budgets. Obviously, making provisions for known future expenses is not a bad thing, but one needs to know how the figure is arrived at, the conditions under which it is being held and when it will be required," Pattinson said.

"It is general knowledge that in the immediate past and currently, the garbage removal costs have been very high due to inefficiencies . . . We want to ensure that the budget and sharply increased tariffs do not accommodate the perpetuation of the inefficiencies, but rather that the tariffs are in line with providing an efficient, cost-effective and sustainable service, and that the tariffs are a true reflection of the real cost of providing that service."

Challenge

Memani said that the biggest challenge is to get people to pay for services. "Achieving this requires political will." He said that all councillors will be asked to urge communities to pay for services, stressing that no services are free. He noted that a wrong impression has been created that the government will pay for services.

Memani admitted that the municipality could have done more in communicating certain controversial announcements such as the sale of municipal land.

A new staff member will be appointed in the communications department, reporting directly to him, to improve and supplement communication with residents.

"We cannot make excuses … we are working to improve that [communication]".

Swart ended the discussion with his own communication message - that the public comment period on the sale of certain municipal properties will be extended by a week.

Steve Pattinson