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Makana rates increases will batter suffering residents

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Dear MyPE

The Democratic Alliance (DA) is outraged at the uncaring ANC-led Makana Municipality’s decision to increase refuse removal fees by 19% in the 2020/2021 financial year.

This is one of the increases contained in Makana’s 2020/2021 municipal budget that was approved at a chaotic virtual council meeting held on Monday, 29 June 2020, in Makhanda.

The town of Makhanda is littered with refuse and illegal dumping sites and yet residents are expected to pay more for a service that they are clearly not being provided with.

Municipal workers will also be granted an increase of 6,25% – above that of the rate of inflation which is officially at 6%. The cost of electricity will be increased by 6%.

The DA spoke out against these increases but was ignored to the detriment of residents.

The proposed Integrated Development Plan (IDP) is also riddled with typographical errors and is a “copy and paste job”. Several factual errors were evident. The IDP is the same mishmash that we have seen in previous years.

This all comes at a time when residents are reeling from the economic impact of Covid-19, the loss of employment by many, and against the backdrop of the court case instructing Eastern Cape Premier Oscar Mabuyane and the Eastern Cape MEC for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA), Xolile Nqatha, to dissolve the Municipality.

With the administration having been in contravention of a court order for several years regarding the management of the municipal dump site, residents can rightfully question what justifies this massive jump in tariffs for refuse removal.

The DA will now write to MEC Nqatha and request that he implements a comprehensive financial recovery plan drafted after the provincial government intervened in Makana’s administration in 2015.

The long-suffering people of Makana have been deprived of their right to service delivery for years and are now expected to pay for this non-delivery.

The DA intends on calling for fresh elections as soon as it is safe to do so, to ensure that the people of Makana Municipality get the level of service delivery they deserve.

Regards

Cllr Brian Fargher
DA Makana Caucus Leader

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