OR Tambo District Municipality (ORTDM) executive mayor, Mesuli Ngqondwana, says that the district municipality will, after a long time of not being able to spend allocated grants, not be returning unspent grants from national treasury.
He says the municipality has exceeded the minimum spend percentage on allocated grants for the mid-term of the current financial year, as stipulated in the Division of Revenue Act (DORA).
Ngqondwana made the comments on the sidelines of the two-day Mega Strategic Planning Session the district municipality hosted at Dan’s Lodge in Libode from February 19 to 20.
The two-day session was aimed at reviewing the municipality’s performance in line with its plans for the current financial year, as well as the overall five-year plan, crafted when the current administration took office after the 2021 Local Government Elections.
While delivering his maiden State of the District Address (SODA) last year, Ngqondwana had cautioned that there will be consequences for non-performance, adding that the district municipality expected a minimum of 90 percent performance from both directors and political heads of municipal departments.
He says that positive strides have been made to improve performance since the State of the District Address.
“We are very happy with the performance of the district municipality because we have taken a huge upward leap compared to that of previous financial years. For example, our mid-year performance in terms of municipal infrastructure grant spend stands at 59 percent, compared to mid-year minimum spend of 40 percent as stipulated on DORA,” said Ngqondwana.
He also commented on his SODA wish for the district municipality to rid itself of the stain of being one of the major contributors to irregular and wasteful expenditure, as well as improving its audit outcomes.
“You will recall that the district municipality has, for many years, been receiving poor audit outcomes from the Auditor General. We are now at a stage where we received an unqualified audit opinion, which means we have a few issues to address to get that clean audit opinion,” Ngqondwana added.
On water supply challenges, Ngqondwana said the municipality had resuscitated several water supply schemes where taps had dried for years, and water was now flowing out of the taps.
He further blamed rampant illegal water connections as a reason for water interruption, especially in the Mthatha West area that includes areas such as Mandela Park, Joe Slovo, and Chris Hani Park A and B.
He has encouraged communities to report water supply interruptions due to burst pipes, water leaks, and illegal water connections, using the municipality’s Water and Sanitation Customer Call Centre at 047 501 9106 / 060 752 0961.
