The Buffalo City Metro council has been castigated for hastily approving its 2024/2025 budget and Integrated Development Plan (IDP) without physically meeting ratepayers.
On May 31, the deadline for the items to be adopted, a majority of councillors passed the budget and IDP at a special virtual council meeting.
But some councillors boycotted the meeting, saying they were given insufficient notice, and the way the items were approved has left a sour taste in the mouth of many politicians and ratepayers.
For the financial year starting in July, the city tabled a total budget of R11.36bn, comprising R10.129bn in operating expenditure, and a R1.231bn capital budget.
The budget increases to R12.236bn in the next financial year, and to R13.115bn in 2026/2027 year.
The meeting sat just two days after the general election and councillors were informed of the sitting less than 24 hours beforehand, giving them little time to prepare by going through the weighty council reports.
The city also endorsed a 15.31% increase in the electricity tariff, which is above the National Energy Regulator of SA’s proposed increase of 12.7%.
Other rate increases, which will kick in from July 1, include:
- Water — 7.79%;
- Sewerage 5.2%;
- Refuse — 5.2%, and
- Assessment rates — 3.9%
Though the city believes it consulted adequately by taking out a newspaper advert in April, calling on ratepayers to view documents at municipal premises such as libraries, before making written submissions, its failure to host public roadshows has not gone down well.
BCM had previously assured ratepayers that there would be a public consultation process on the budget and IDP by the end of May.
This would have afforded ratepayers an opportunity to physically lodge objections against tariff hike proposals they disagreed with.
The DA, which boycotted the virtual meeting after its plea to council speaker Humphrey Maxhegwana to postpone it was rejected, described the move as unlawful.
The party proposed that the meeting be postponed because councillors did not have enough time to go through the “voluminous reports”, which they received less than 24 hours before the council meeting.
“This is, of course, in contravention of a rule of council, and councillors could not possibly perform due diligence over the budget in the space of a few hours,” it said.
DA councillor Sue Bentley raised concerns on Friday that the budget and IDP had been adopted without physical consultation taking place, “as is the norm”.
She said the party was surprised to hear that there had been consultation in any form, adding that, at best, BCM had only vaguely respected a genuine public participation process, as prescribed by the Municipal Systems Act.
“An online search clearly indicates that no advertising of such IDP processes have been included on the BCM website or any other form of media,” she said.
“Past IDP roadshows have been held in ward cluster groupings across the metro, and even these have been largely a tick box exercise.
“A lack of proper and adequate consultation is never questioned, it seems, but a failure to consult is illegal, thus rendering the 2024/2025 budget recently passed by the ANC illegal.
“This would not be the first time that they have passed a budget illegally as the 2020/2021 budget was ‘passed’ without the legally required majority of council,” Bentley said.
“Public participation on matters such as the rates policy were legally challenged previously, and the courts made it clear that public participation/inputs are a lot more than just having a gathering of people and a short presentation.
“All relevant information needs to be provided.
“In the run-up to the adoption of the IDP/budget no such process, as outlined in the court judgment have been undertaken and the adoption is thus, in our view, rendered invalid.”
Border-Kei Chamber of Business executive director Lizelle Maurice said it seemed the metro did not conduct roadshows, as had been done in the previous year.
Even during the restrictions imposed because of the Covid-19 pandemic, former city mayor Xola Pakati had gone on air on a number of metro radio stations, interacting with stakeholders before such crucial items were adopted.
Maurice said it appeared that the BCM council had put the election first at the expense of service delivery.
“I suppose they did not want to have [the IDP] roadshow because they were busy campaigning,” she said.
“Everything went wayside, forgetting that people and service delivery come first before any election campaign or ensuring you get the results that you want in the election.
“That’s really attests that there was a massive decline in the ANC vote this year, because people are just tired of the lack of consultation ... lack of community engagement.
“We need to be engaged as citizens and businesses.
“They normally do the IDP roadshow but this year they did not because election took preference,” Maurice said.
Beacon Bay Ratepayers Association chair Scott Roebert said the metro should have done more to ensure public participation.
Roebert said many ratepayers were unimpressed by BCM’s efforts.
“Many ratepayers are very disgruntled due to billing queries and poor service delivery and seeing approvals without thorough consultation doesn’t sit well with us at all,” he said.
EFF councillor Mziyanda Hlekiso said it was wrong for the metro to decide “on what ratepayers wanted”.
Hlekiso said Chapter 4 of the Municipal Systems Act was clear on what needed to be done.
“There must be consultation in terms of the law. It’s unlawful not to consult the public on issues that affect them,” he said.
“As the EFF we want to send a strong message to the leaders of the municipality to fix this because it’s going to lead us to special council meetings to divert resources because the planning is not proper.
“When the planning is not proper, it will lead to service delivery problems.
“We reject this [adoption] because the community was not properly consulted.”
UDM councillor Anele Skoti said the ANC-led council should have done better in terms of consultation.
Community activist and National Community Dialogues chair Leonard Ncumbese said: “Consultation is one of the Batho Pele [people first] principles, but the Princess Faku administration is like Animal Farm, where ANC animals are better than other rate-paying animals.”
However, BCM spokesperson Samkelo Ngwenya said there had been no wrongdoing on the part of the metro.
He said a newspaper advert calling for comments on the draft IDP and budget was published on April 5.
“Comments were received in writing through submissions to our offices, the WhatsApp number which was created for this purpose, Facebook comments and email.
“Consultation in terms of legislation was therefore done,” Ngwenya said.
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