Budget Speech 2004/2005
Mr Speaker,
Fellow Councillors
Members of the press Distinguished Guests
I thank you for this opportunity once again to
address this house on the two vital issues that are
central to our task of transforming our society and
building a better life for all.
- Our Integrated Development Plan and
- Our Multi Year Budget the years 2004-2005,
2005-2006 and 2006-2007.
Mr. Speaker I beg your indulgence to allow me to
put these issues in the context of time, space and
conjuncture. Before we delve into the content of
both our IDP and our Budget we need to stand back
and look carefully and the material conditions both
subjective and objective, that have provided the
background to our planning and drafting of these
important documents.
I shall not speak of the significance of the 10
years of freedom, nor of our Bid for the 2010 FIFA
Soccer World Cup so much have been said that it is
hardly possible for me to add more.
Last year we pointed out that our budget was
compiled as a transformation fool to effect the
final rupture with the past and to put us firmly on
the path to the realisation of our collective vision
of a better life for all. This year we cam say with
confidence that we have effected that rupture and
that we are firmly beginning to push back the
frontiers of poverty.
The investment we have made in our rural
programmes have not only began to address the basic
needs of our people but have impacted positively on
their livelihood strategies. Over this time we have
also learned that the old ways of planning and
implementing projects without active involvement of
the people just does not work. We have therefore
fundamentally changed our project implementation
methodology guided by our development philosophy of
people-centred and people-driven development.
It is this philosophy that has inspired our theme
of putting people at the centre of development. It
shall serve as a guiding beacon for our development
efforts throughout the coming financial year.
Our Strategic focus on our four key performance
areas has proved to be correct:
- To meet the basic needs of our people
- To promote local economic development
- To mobilise and empower our people to become
active agents development
- To transform our structures and ethos to
become an instrument of change.
Circumstances have changed but not fundamentally
enough to cause us to move away from these key
strategic focus areas. Our persistent focus on these
areas has decisively turned the ship in the
direction we want to take. What we need is the
navigational skills, the motivation and the will to
proceed full steam ahead.
Mr. Speaker allow me to take moment to reflect on
how far we have come in each of these areas and to
highlight some of the key challenges.
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When we started off three and half years ago we
set as our vision the creation of
A safe, prosperous and caring Municipality,
free of poverty and inequality; promoting
participatory development and providing
sustainable quality services for a better life
for all.
This is the vision that still inspire us today.
We took as our mission
To build prosperity, eradicate poverty and
inequality, to promote the social, political and
economic empowerment of all our people through
delivery of quality services, community
participation, promotion of local economic
development and smart administration.
This vision and our mission committed us to
tackle poverty by beginning to eradicate the vast
backlogs in basic household infrastructure and
service delivery, which we had inherited from our
apartheid past. In line with our constitution, we
had prioritised the basic needs of our people,
especially basic supply of potable water. This was
reflected in the amount of resources that we devoted
to our first key performance area of meeting the
basic needs of our people.
We had even gone beyond the call of duty as we
bravely forged ahead to implement water projects
even in areas where we were not formally appointed
Water Service Authority. We knew that for as long as
rural mothers had to spend up to six hours a day to
fetch unclean water from distant streams we would
never hope to realise our common vision. We had
embarked on programmes to grade, rebuild and
regravel rural roads because we know deep down that
as long as those poor rural masses could not easily
access the markets, services, facilities and
economic opportunities that they did not have in
their villages our dream of local economic
development and social upliftment would never be
realised. We had gone on beyond the call of duty to
approach the provincial department of Local
Government and Housing to be given the opportunity
to complete some of the housing projects that had
been stalled from as far back as 1997, because we
knew that if we did not do so, thousands of families
would remain homeless and our dream of a better life
for all would remain a pipe dream.
Today we can proudly say that we have played our
part to make the 10 years of Freedom a reality for
our people.
But in these three and half years we have also
learned that for these services to be sustainable we
have to develop a partnership with our people. They
must take active part in planning, implementing,
operating and maintaining these projects. They must
own them and control them. It thus becomes our duty
to inform, educate, mobilise them and empower them
to take that control.
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To this end we have established Ward Committees
and project Steering Committees. As from the
2003-2004 financial year we have also bound all
consultants who deal with rural projects to plan
with the community to align their designs and plans
with the needs of those communities. They must also
educate and train members of these communities to
operate and implement routine repairs and
maintenance. Without these steps these programmes
would not be sustainable.
But the vision of the Reconstruction and
Development Programme envisaged programmes that will
also create economic opportunities for our people.
In the implementation of these programmes we must
also seek to utilise labour intensive methods not
only to create jobs for local communities but also
to inject part of the resources for that project in
the local economy in line with the expanded Public
Works Programme.
Thus the implementation of our infrastructure
programmes must also empower local communities and
promote local economic development. But our Local
Economic Development Strategy does not end here.
Its strategic objectives are clear: To promote
local economic growth and the creation of economic
opportunities for our people. The programmes within
our Local Economic Development strategy are:
- Attraction and retention of investment
through marketing and creative incentive
schemes.
- Promotion of Small Medium and Micro
enterprises and Black Economic Empowerment
through
- Affirmative procurement
- Review of our by laws
- Promotion of ownership of fixed assets
by HDIs
- Promotion of skills development especially
amongst youth and women.
- Reduction of vulnerability through
strengthening of sustainable of livelihood
initiatives.
Among the initiatives we have started under those
programmes are the Itsoseng Entrepreneur Development
Centre which will incubate and train up to a hundred
local entrepreneurs. This Centre will come on stream
on the first of June 2004 with the first 10
entrepreneurs. Other initiatives include the
establishment of the African Market which we will
start with construction in this financial year.
Other major initiatives include the formalisation
and regulation of Street Vendors and other street
businesses in the City and elsewhere.
Even though we have a clear vision on these
programmes, their implementation has remained a
serious challenge over the last three years. It is
out aim in this financial year to turn our focus on
to this vital area to create jobs and to stabilize
the livelihoods of the many hawkers and informal
entrepreneurs.
But the implementation of these programmes and
the realization of our common vision would not be
possible with an untransformed and ossified
Municipal Administration. Thus the need to transform
our institution into an efficient, performance and
outcome oriented organism that is sensitive and
adaptive to the needs and aspirations of our people.
In this we can say with confidence, that we have
taken giant strides. Even though some of our
managers still seem to be caught in a time warp,
they shall have to shape up or ship out. We cannot
afford to wait another year for people to catch up
with ten years of service delivery. This institution
is definitely no longer what it was 3 years ago. We
are ready to move into another phase of
transformation.
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This transformation means that we have to clearly
identify our core functions and competencies. We
have to identify the skills that will enable us to
carry out these functions acquire them and deploy
them correctly. We have to develop a Human Resource
Strategy that will enable us to develop, deploy and
retain the necessary skills and talent that will
enable us to accomplish our mission and to realise
our common vision. In this financial year this will
be one of our focus areas to enrich our human
capital through reorientation development,
motivation and incentives. We shall also strive to
create an attractive and motivating work
environment. This approach is premised upon the
belief that it is people who make organisations work
that they are the life giving force of any
institution. If they are unwilling disillusioned and
demotivated even the best plans, structures and
technologies would never drive an organisation to
its goals.
But it is not only our people inside who have to
be inspired and motivated. As a Municipality we have
to build partnerships with business, with unions,
civil society, NGOs our communities, organised and
unorganised to build on our common vision. We have
to broaden and deepen the theatre of developmental
activism, to mobilise wider circles of stakeholders
and to commit them to our common goals of Local
Economic Development and poverty eradication.
The challenge is for all of us to become active
agents of change to become builders of anew people
centred society, working together, united in action
to push back the frontiers of poverty.
We therefore extend our hand to business,
religious communities, NGOs, Unions and all freedom
loving people to work together with us in the
interest of our common destiny and our common
future.
To this end in this financial year we shall
embark on an assertive communication strategy aimed
at articulating our common vision and to create
broad consensus based on this vision. This program
will also seek to inform, educate and mobilise
broader circles of stakeholder into partnerships
with us for the realisation of our common vision.
All of these are highlights of our Integrated
Development Plan which make it a living document
imbued with the spirit that had inspired the world
when it met at the World Summit on Sustainable
Development.
It is this vision and the steps we have taken
towards its realisation that have prompted the
Institute for Housing of South Africa to award
Polokwane Municipality the Housing Local Authority
of the Year 2003 the delivery of housing. In 2004 it
has also earned us three Diamond Arrow Awards being
rated highest in three categories by the Prestigious
PMR (Professional Management Review). It has also
earned us third place in the Provincial Vuna Awards
and (R250 000) in 2003.
All of these awards tell us that we are heading
in the right direction. They must also inspire us to
strive for even better performance in our quest for
excellence in serving our people.
Mr. Speaker it is easy to be taken up with
details of our Integrated Development Plan and the
progress we have made so far.
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Let me rather delve into the second major subject
of our meeting today, the Multi Year Budget for
2004-2005, 2005-2006 and 2006-2007.
Mr. Speaker you shall have noticed the general
improvement in the appearance and the care with
which this years budget has been compiled. 18 months
ago we started with the pilot scheme to implement
the Municipal Finance Management Bill which has now
become an Act.
This requires Municipalities to change the way we
compile our budget and to disclose specific
information in a prescribed format in the budget to
be tabled before council. The format is formulated
to be much more informative to allow council to make
informed decisions.
The salient feature of this budget is its chose
integration with planning cycle of the Integrated
Development Plan. The Strategic Business Unit
operational Plans and their scrutiny by a multi
Party Budget Committee and the implementation of a
refined Performance Management System will ensure
the close alignment of this years budget with the
IDP.
The early announcement and gazetting of the
Division of Revenue Act have also enabled us to plan
in time and to allocate funds in line with our IDP
priorities. In this year the major departure is the
early implementation of the Municipal Infrastructure
Grant (MIG) which will replace CMIP, Local Economic
Development Fund, Water Services Capital Grand,
Community Based Public Works Program Building for
Sports and Recreation Program, Urban Transport Grand
and the National Electrification Programme full
details of the condition of this fund appear in your
budget document.
Another achievement we have attained is R10 000
000 for the Restructuring Grant from the application
that we lodged in 2003. This will form part of our
operating budget to fund strategic restructuring
programmes.
If we look at the historical trend of operating
revenue on page 18 of our multi-year budget the most
striking feature is the rapid increase in Grant and
Subsidies which has risen from R16 655 902 in
2000-2001 to R134 733 335 in 2004-2005. This include
percentage increase 151% and 115% in 2002-2003 and
2003-2004 financial years.
The Grant to Polokwane for the 2004-2005
financial year will be R67,9m rising to R71,3m on
the following year and finally to R76,3m in the
2006-2007 financial year. To implement the
programmes under this grant we shall have to
establish a special project implementation unit. And
it is mainly the increase on this grant that
accounts for the substantial increase in the capital
budget.
Total funds available for Capital projects for
this year will be R146 702 000. Our suggested
allocation of these funds is on page 61-65.
- Suggested amendment Makgaile R250 000 for
water reticulation
- Polokwane Bus Terminus Phase 2
- Glass House Renovation (the Old Mikes
Kitchen)
- Guest House
- New Council Chamber
- 2nd Eskom supply line
- Lesedi Park
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As we continue to build an efficient, performance
oriented organisation we can expect to reap the
efficiency divident. We can thus afford to keep our
tariff and rate increase below inflation. Thus we
propose that Council adopt the following tariff
increases for 2004-2005 financial year
- Assessment Rates 7% from 1 July 2004
- Electricity 3,5% from 1 January 2005
- Water 6% from 1 July 2004
- Refuse Removal 6,9% from 1 July 2004
- Sanitation 6,9% from 1 July 2004
- Other Services 7& from 1 July 2004
We believe that these mild increases will
continue to allow businesses to operate profitably
and households to live without pressure.
Another issue that I wish to touch on is the
Water Restrictions that we had to impose in the
second half of 2003. At the time we had to resort to
these restrictions it was clear that if we did not
take these drastic steps we were going to run into a
crisis which would have forced us to take even more
desperate measures that would have had grave
economic consequences. But the good rains we had in
the last rainy season have brought us to the level
where we can today recommend to this house that we
lift the restrictions. But even as we do so we need
to continue with caution and raise the awareness of
our communities that water is not an infinite
resource it has to be used with restraint.
Before we conclude we would wish to indicate to
this house some few initiatives that we are
considering which we believe will increase the
momentum of economic growth and job creation within
our city.
- The establishment of a Regional Shopping
Centre
- The phased implementation of the proposed
Dwelling Office Policy
- The Demarcation of an Urban Development Zone
As for the expansion of our sporting facilities
around Peter Mokaba Stadium, we will be initiating
discussions with both Provincial and National
Government about he funding of this upgrading to be
ready for the 2010 FIFA World Soccer Cup. In this
financial year we are putting aside R1m to commence
with the detailed planning of this massive project.
Viva South Africa Viva Viva Polokwane Viva.
In conclusion I wish to express our deepest
gratitude to the following for the effort that they
have put in the preparation of this budget and IDP.
- Councillor Koop Reinecke Chair of the
Finance Portfolio Committee
- Members of the Multi Party Budget Committee
- The Municipal Manager Leshabe Rampedi
- The Chief Financial Officer Ms. Ndanduleni
Makhari and the staff in the Financial Services
- Directors, Letsepe Thubakgale, Henry Lubbe
and Modjadji Malahlela and their Managers of all
SBUs
- The Budget Advisor Mr. Jim Hewitt
- Managers Nape Nchabeleng and Simon Mokoatedi
for their sleepless nights
- Numerous other that we are unable to mention
by name
Your efforts are appreciated.
Mr Speaker, I propose to this house that we adopt
this multi year budget and this IDP for the
2004-2005, 2005-2006 and 2006-2007.
Thank You
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