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Record low NMB expenditure will see even more money lost

By

Dear Editor

Three quarters through the current financial year and Nelson Mandela Bay (NMB) has only spent 37% of its total capital budget. The latest available statistics on capital expenditure shows only a marginal 8% increase from February 2024. This means that the metro has only one quarter left in order to spend almost two quarters of its budget.

The slow spending rate should be a massive concern to all residents as the Metro has already forfeited more than R430 million in grant funding cuts to National Treasury this year. The latest cuts were gazetted in March and has seen NMB forfeiting an amount of R171,9 million due to excessive under expenditure by the beleaguered administration.

Should the slow expenditure rate continue, NMB is bound to forfeit even more millions at the end of the financial year as National Treasury has a “use it or lose it” approach to conditional grant funding.

The conditional grant funding at stake includes USDG (Urban Settlement Development Grant), ISUPG (Informal Settlements Upgrading Partnership Grant) and PTNG (Public Transport Network Grant) – all of which fund critical infrastructure works such as the construction of water reticulation, sanitation reticulation, electricity networks and roads.

In the 2022/23 financial year the DA and its coalition partners achieved the highest expenditure in four years. In the three financial years prior to our coalition taking over, NMB forfeited more than a billion Rand to municipalities that had the ability to spend their conditional grant funding on infrastructure development.

Investment in public infrastructure is absolutely critical towards creating jobs. Losing hundreds of millions of Rands in grant funding has a direct impact on the economy of our region.

The DA will now be calling for a special Budget Monitoring Committee session so that urgent interventions can be taken in respect of underspending on critical conditional grant projects.

The DA is in your corner, fighting for you. Together we can Rescue South Africa and Nelson Mandela Bay from this inept ANC government.

Regards

Cllr Retief Odendaal
DA NMB Caucus Leader

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