If Joburg city councillors have their way, the mayor will get a R75 869 a year increase. He and some councillors will also get security personnel and 40 vehicles assigned to them – while the City falls apart. Not on our watch, says JoburgCAN in their objection to the budget. 

JoburgCAN wants the City of Joburg (CoJ) to clarify its budget allocations and make urgent amendments to avoid a failed budget before the scheduled adoption of the budget and Integrated Development Plan (IDP) for 2024/25 on 16 May 2024. 

Julia Fish, JoburgCAN manager, says there are several concerns in the proposed budget, such as the spending on top executives instead of maintenance and infrastructure in the City. “Perks and allowances must be cut to address the immediate needs of residents in the city. Stabilising the water and electricity grid should be the Number 1 aim of the IDP and budget, which would have a stabilising effect enabling the delivery of the rest of the objectives.”

JoburgCAN has objected to the following proposals in the budget: 

Salaries for the executive: During the current financial year, the mayor (Kabelo Gwamanda) is paid R25 542 more than the nationally set legal limit for executive mayors at the biggest municipalities in SA. CoJ plans to continue overpaying him by R75 869 next year, raising his salary to just over R1,6 million. The City’s councillors are also getting a 3,7% salary increase, increasing the salary bill for councillors from R184,5 million last year to R191,4 million.

VIP protection and cars: It’s not clear where funds for the 60 personal security personnel and 40 fleet vehicles made available to the executive, department heads and MMCs is going to come from.

Extra staff: The draft budget lists 292 positions for political office bearers and other councillors, but the City officially has 270 councillors. JoburgCAN wants clarification of this number.

This budget is unaffordable, unacceptable, and unlawful, says Fish. 

“JoburgCAN made a formal submission on the budget and IDP to the City, as part of the public participation process, which was a problem itself. We were alerted to public concerns about the inaccessibility and inadequacy of the City’s public meetings on the documents, the inclusion of a new rates bylaw which should have its own process, missing documents, and a too-short comment period of only 21 working days. On 19 April, JoburgCAN formally asked the City for an extension to the comment deadline (there has been no response) and repeated this in the submission.” 

Despite the objection to the short time allocated, JoburgCAN has submitted a detailed response and raised the following issues, amongst others:  

• Under collecting revenue: The City is under collecting on revenue, with the budget based on a collection rate of only 85% while even that target is not being met.

• Risks to grants: The City is underspending on national grants at only 45%, resulting in the potential loss of these funds.

• Unexplained staff expansion:  These include the increase of board members for municipal entities from 14 to 75, an increase in municipal manager positions from 162 to 233, other managers from 561 to 3 591 and professionals from 9 472 to 20 364.

• Investment flight and semigration: The City continues to rely on paying residents while delivering limited services in highest paying regions, risking losing more businesses and ratepayers to better-performing municipalities. 

• Unpaid and unaffordable rents: The City owns considerable rental stock including low-income housing and retirement home facilities. The rental collection rate is only 4%.  

• Water and power entities: The budget does not reflect the ongoing losses at the City’s entities Johannesburg Water and City Power of R1bn and R300m per month respectively. 

• Joburg Water: In 2022/23, the City recorded water losses worth R2.9 billion against sales of R8.5 billion and needs R64 billion to replace and refurbish failing infrastructure. 

• Impaired debt: The ongoing problem of outstanding debt across services is not addressed. 

• Technology: There is limited accountability for the lack of integration, collaboration, and technology take-up in the City.

• Inadequate repairs and maintenance: The City has underspent for years on repairs and maintenance. 

• Inadequate capital spending records and auditing of projects: The City’s spending, particularly project-by-project capital expenditure, is not adequately recorded. 

• Unrealistic tariffs: The budget and tariffs of the City are becoming unaffordable for residents. 

• Unreasonable and confusing prepaid electricity tariffs: Households that attempt to limit consumption of services to save costs are prejudiced. 

• Discriminatory tariffs: The sanitation tariffs discriminate against multi-dwellings (complexes) with low-water usage. 

• Sanitation tariffs: All sanitation tariffs should be linked to water usage, as required by the National Treasury’s Standard Tariff Setting Methodology, but the City uses tariffs linked to property size which has no bearing on the use of the service.

• Indigent register: The City has about 130 000 households on the indigent register (and thus eligible for free basic services), but the City’s own statistics on household access to services indicate much wider poverty. 

• Double rates for schools: Rates double this year for public and independent schools, as the City continues its policy of applying unaffordable rates. 

• Discriminatory refuse charges: The City charges businesses a flat rate for refuse removal rather than a rate linked to the number of bins used. 

• Scrap the rates increase: The City has yet to finalise the objections from property owners following last year’s general valuation roll increases. 

• Rates policy overhaul: This policy was not adequately presented and should be a separate process.

• Household bills estimates: The City’s table on household bills, intended to give residents an understanding of their expected expenditure, is inaccurate so meaningless. 

For more detailed comments on the issues above, read here.

More information

JoburgCAN's submission to the City of Joburg is here and the annexures are here and here.

More about JoburgCAN is here and here.