PLETTENBERG BAY NEWS - Bitou Municipality received a feather in its cap from the department of cooperative governance and traditional affairs after spending its entire municipal infrastructure grant (MIG) by the end of the financial year.

ANC chief whip in Bitou Phaki Mbali said the grant was spent before the 30 June 2018 deadline and was due to the dedication from the municipality’s officials as well as the municipality’s turnaround strategy. 

“We are pleased to report that the municipality received a word of appreciation from the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs for this endeavour,” Mbali said.

This follows in the wake of Bitou being one of three Western Cape municipalities that lost their clean audit status in the previous financial year due to material noncompliance with supply chain management regulations and the failure to prevent irregular expenditure – the first time in four years that Bitou received an unqualified audit.

“We are also pleased to report that through intervention since we (the ANC/AUF coalition) took over the municipality (earlier this year) have improved the capital expenditure from 39% in the third quarter to 90% in the fourth quarter as compared to the same period in the previous year, which was 83.5%. This represents an improvement of 51% from March to 30 June 2018 and an improvement of 6.5% from the previous financial year,” Mbali said.

He said that the turnaround strategy was taking shape, which should lead to improved service delivery.

“The stability of the administration will add more to drive service delivery to our communities," and added that the ANC/AUF coalition government has now appointed Thozamile Sompani as director of Community Services and Micheal John Rhode as director of Engineering at the municipality.

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