Mayor in bid to flog broke ADM’s assets

But Amathole District Municipality councillors united across the political divide at last week’s meeting to block mayor Nomasikizi Konza’s proposal.

Rather than sell assets, a hike in water and sanitation costs has been put forward.

This will affect all residents and businesses in ADM local municipalities including Mbhashe, Mnquma, Great Kei, Amahlathi, Ngqushwa, Nkonkobe and Nxuba.

The Dispatch reported last month that the ADM had less than R300-million in its kitty on December 31.

From this the municipality has yet to finance its monthly salary bill of R50-million and pay leases and telephone bills for the next four months until the financial year ends in June.

Adding to the burden is an amount of R108-million which the ADM owes the Development Bank of Southern Africa that must be paid by the end of March.

This is made up of a R56-million capital loan and accumulated interest of R52-million. The debt is part of the bank’s R286-million loan to ADM for its accelerated sanitation project.

Last year a R631-million contract for the Siyenza Group to build toilets for the Amathole district municipality was set aside by the East London High Court. The matter was referred to the public protector.

So dire is the financial squeeze that on Tuesday Konza submitted a report with a list of 28 “non-core” items said to total R43-million to the ADM council and proposed these be disposed of to raise the needed capital.

The items listed included the R6-million mayoral house and a state-sponsored plot valued at R1.9-million in East London, as well as land and properties in Cathcart, Chintsa, East London, Haga Haga, Morgan’s Bay, Stutterheim, Sunrise-On-Sea and Winterstrand.

But when her fellow ANC councillors and opposition members all disagreed, Konza made a U-turn and urged that the municipality instead find alternative ways to raise funds.

ANC council speaker Samkelo Janda confirmed yesterday that the council had pressured Konza to scrap the plan, and instead increase water and sanitation tariffs.

“It was decided that the municipality will have to strengthen and increase revenue collection on top of finding other ways to raise capital,” Janda said.

“We said the service charges for water and sanitation must increase.”

DA councillor William Ward also confirmed yesterday that both DA and ANC councillors had “opposed the idea of selling properties because you don’t play with property and land”.

“The plan was tabled but it was turned down by all political parties. It was not approved,” said Ward.

The municipality was a water service authority, which was a major contributor of revenue for the organisation.

Another proposal was that ADM halt funding programmes that did not add value to the running of the municipality.

Four months ago the municipality paid more than R2-million for a beauty contest hosted by its councillor, Nanziwe Rulashe.

In October it paid R1.5-million to bankroll a boxing event organised by TTT Boxing Promotions, in collaboration with Rumble Africa Promotions – a promotion company owned by ANC Amathole regional secretary Teris Ntuthu. — zwangam@dispatch.co.za