Reuters
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Durban – Belts are being tightened to the last hole in the Mpofana Municipality in Mooi River where a financial crisis means all unnecessary expenditure – like food at meetings, new furniture and travel – has been stopped.
And there will be no Christmas party for staff this year.
The South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) raised the alarm about the municipality’s financial crisis apparently because it was running a R3 million overdraft.
Despite this, mayor Janet Mpangase said that there was no crisis.
But Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) spokesman Lennox Mabaso said the department had intervened to help the municipality recover.
Mabaso said the department and the provincial treasury had developed “a recovery plan which should be adopted and implemented by the municipality”.
As a start it had been instructed to stop catering for meetings.
Councillors and officials are normally given breakfast and lunch during meetings but now they had been told to bring their own food, said Mabaso.
Other measures include:
* No promotional items, such as T-shirts, caps and bags would be acquired;
* No unnecessary offsite meetings would be held; and
* No new furniture or other equipment would be bought.
* No private venues would be used for meetings, strategic planning sessions and workshops.
The employees, councillors and senior officials would pay from their own pockets for team-building exercises and Christmas functions.
He said hotel and bed and breakfast bookings had been cancelled. Those travelling to meetings outside Mooi River would have to return and sleep at home.
There would be strict controls of overtime, while the use of the telephone as well as the municipality’s cellphones should also be monitored to cut down bills.
There would also be a review of a policy on subsidised vehicles for officials.
Debt collection and credit control policy would be reviewed and properly implemented.
“The organogram of the municipality should be reviewed as it also appears to be bloated,” Mabaso said.
Samwu’s secretary in Mpofana, Sandile Ndawonde, said the municipality had been in disarray since 2010, but things got worse when the council failed to appoint a municipal manager to replace Muzi Madlala who resigned in June last year.
He said Mario Link was appointed only in December to act in the position.
The chief financial officer resigned in February, but Nondumiso Mbatha, who also worked for the uMgungundlovu District Municipality’s finance department, was helping out twice a week.
“The law does not allow for the municipality to be without these two critical positions,” he said.
bongani.hans@inl.co.za
The Mercury
