PLETTENBERG BAY NEWS - The Bitou Council has declared the area a local state of disaster because of the water situation, which could lead to financial assistance for the municipality from the provincial and national governments.
The "drastic" move now awaits national approval and, if granted, could lead to water security for the area. The matter was also raised during a meeting with the Western Cape MEC for Local Government, Anton Bredell, on Monday 23 February.
It was confirmed that although the municipality has implemented level four water restrictions, this "does not eradicate the state of disaster that effectively exists", according to the council agenda.
Council resolved that the Garden Route District Municipality will be requested to support the classification and to assist with the co-ordination of both short- and long-term interventions required to address the water crisis.
Budget
The medium-term adjustment budget was passed by the council on Friday 27 February.
Among the items approved was R1,2m for the removal of alien vegetation.
Bitou Mayor Jessica Kamkam said the budget was compiled "under challenging economic conditions" such as rising costs, continued unemployment, persistent drought pressures and increasing pressure on municipal revenue collection.
"The current economic climate has made it increa-singly difficult to meet the traditional collection norm of 95% consistently."
To address this, the council established a revenue enhance-ment committee to strengthen oversight and implement measures to sustainably and responsibly improve revenue performance.
Water security
Referring to the effect of the level four water restrictions on the budget, she said: "The reduction in water revenue reflects residents' responsible consumption during this period. At the same time, the municipality has intensified water loss management and infrastructure monitoring to safeguard long-term water security."
The fields of reduced revenue income are water (R2,2m), electricity (R9,6m), and transfers and subsidies (R3m).
On the positive side, the period reflected increases in interest earned (R7m), receivables (R4,5m), operating revenue (R6,3m) and property rates (R6m).
The adjusted operating expenditure increases to R1,087bn, to reflect an upward adjustment of R10,3m.
Key movements include replenishment of emergency stock following fire incidents (R5,2m), depreciation adjustments linked to new capital projects (R3,8m) and lower contracted services (R4,3m).
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