THE coalition running Nelson Mandela Bay municipality has neglected the people of the Northern Areas, Uitenhage and Kwa-Nobuhle by redirecting more than R100 million away from these areas in the 2018/19 adjustments budget.
This is according to councillors Lance Grootboom from the ACDP, Marlon Daniels from the Patriotic Alliance and Retief Odendaal from the Democratic Alliance.
They voiced their disapprovement after more than R50 million, budgeted for 11 Wards in the Northern Areas, will now be directed to other wards and projects.
“More than R21 million has also disappeared from the combined 2018/19 budgets of wards in Uitenhage and KwaNobuhle. The coalition removed R71 million from these combined budgets and replaced it with R50 million,” said Councillor Odendaal.
“This, however, does not paint the full dark picture for the residents of Uitenhage and KwaNo-buhle, as R41 million of the R50 million that was replaced, will be spent on one IPTS project.
“This entails that a total of R62 million in service delivery related budget was cut from these ward-based budgets.”
The budget for critical service delivery areas such as tarring of gravel roads, electrification of informal settlements and other important civil works have been slashed from these ward-based budgets in order to unfairly discriminate against communities.
Grootboom is concerned about the removal of the R12 million budgeted for tar roads and pedestrian walkways in Uitenhage.
“This is unacceptable. Is this what they think of the residents of Uitenhage?”
– REPORTER
