PLETTENBERG BAY NEWS - A major problem in Bitou municipality is that key director positions remain vacant for "excessively long periods", the Plettenberg Ratepayers' Association has said in its annual governance report.
Debi Nicholson, executive committee member, says in the report that Bitou municipality seems incapable of searching for and recruiting suitable individuals, and senior positions are filled with too many acting directors.
"Positions are not effectively advertised and recruitment is often limited to a small pool of politically favoured applicants," said Nicholson.
Poor track records
Officials with poor track records hop from municipality to municipality, one step ahead of being held to account for misdeeds.
"The removal of Mbulelo Memani and Felix Lotter and their resulting return to their positions has resulted in its own issues with court orders for the repayment of the settlement monies handed out... to make way for 'compliant' cronies," said Nicholson.
Fiscal responsibility
She said the association was "particularly concerned" about the budget, and whether council is sufficiently competent and committed to oversight and fiscal responsibility.
"A lot of money can be saved or spent better," she said
Among the aspects she highlighted were:
• The organogram continues to grow with staff who are not essential to service delivery;
• The budgeting process is being completely undermined and negated by seemingly out of control virements at the officials' discretion, which effectively allows the officials to ignore and override council's budget and do exactly as they please with the money;
• Too many slush funds exist to the detriment of urgent maintenance work needing to be done;
• Lack of discipline in spending capital grants leads to fiscal dumping or forfeiture;
• Topping off a budget exceeding R1bn with additional borrowings at punitive interest rates seems unnecessary; and
• "Apply the money properly, don't borrow more than council needs to take back control of the budget (and eliminate frivolous spending such as R350 000 for horticulture research, R3 million for a cultural village in Qolweni that appears abandoned, over a million spent on holiday celebrations."
Key initiatives
Some key initiatives the association will be pursuing in the new year, says Nicholson, are:
• Not accepting high tariff increases next July without a careful review of the cost to deliver that service;
• Working with OUTA to oppose the proposed electricity tariff increase; and
• Working with the engineering department to spur the functionality and replacement of the wastewater plant, and find additional water sources.
"But these are long-term projects which require long-term thinking and planning, as well as council support," she added.
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