The Sol Plaatje Municipality in Kimberley must return R54 million in unspent grants to the Treasury as council committees and the administration “either did not have the capacity or political will” to spend the much-needed money on dilapidated infrastructure and essential services.
So says Chris Whittaker, DA councilor, after the second adjusted budget for the financial year ending June 2024 was approved by the ANC and Good at a council meeting on 31 May, meaning the money was handed back to the Treasury.
“This money should have been spent on upgrading the Hadison Park substation, upgrading the RC Elliot Hall and the dilapidated water infrastructure.
“What a disgrace.”
He says the city desperately needs to upgrade, replace, and expand infrastructure to accommodate a growing population.
“It needs large amounts of money to do this, but the municipality has failed to spend the millions allocated for exactly this purpose.
“The municipality depends on grants to implement much-needed capital infrastructure projects.
“The biggest, and possibly the most potentially catastrophic, repercussion of Sol Plaatje’s failure to manage its grant funding, is the R35 million taken away from the Regional Bulk Infrastructure Grant (RBIG) meant for the upgrading of water infrastructure.
“The Integrated Urban Development Grant (IUDG), meant to refurbish water pipes, has also been reduced by R11 million.
“The Hadison Park substation regularly experiences power outages after load shedding and cannot be relied upon to enable future development in its area of service.
“Its Integrated National Electrification Programme (INEP) grant funding has been reduced by over R10 million.”
Whittaker says that departments like Minerals and Energy, who gave the grants, came to the council and administration late last year to explain what must be done to access and spend the grant.
“It seems the administration had problems with the required procurement processes, while all the while this much-needed money was readily available.
“Council committees like the Municipal Public Accounts Committee (Mpac), Integrated Development Plans (IDP) and Budget committee also did not put pressure on the administration to spend the grants.
“There seems to be little no consequence management.
“We previously asked Sol Plaatje whether a notice was issued by Treasury in respect of them taking back the unspent funds and, if so, why it was not presented to council as required by the Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA). No response has been received.
“The DA will push for the ANC-run municipality, which has failed to implement the IDP and spend the grant money in a timeous manner, to be held accountable.”
