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The City of Johannesburg draft budget and draft Integrated Development Plan (IDP) for 2024/25 are not in line with the law, do not adequately address the needs of a city where services are collapsing, and should be amended, says the Joburg Community Action Network (JoburgCAN).
“Stabilising the water and electricity grid should be the Number 1 aim of the IDP and budget, which would have a stabilising effect enabling the delivery of the rest of the objectives,” says Julia Fish, JoburgCAN Manager.
“Instead, we have unexplained increases to the staff numbers and in board members at municipal-owned entities, an executive that are exceeding their remuneration limits and the additional unbudgeted expense of private security for all the top brass.
“JoburgCAN rejects the budget as unaffordable, unacceptable and unlawful.”
JoburgCAN, an initiative of OUTA, has made a formal submission on the budget and IDP to the City, as part of the public participation process.
The public participation process itself was a key problem. JoburgCAN was alerted to public concerns about the inaccessibility and inadequacy of the City’s public meetings on the documents, the inclusion of a new rates bylaw which should have its own process, missing documents, and a too-short comment period of only 21 working days. On 19 April, JoburgCAN formally asked the City for an extension to the comment deadline (there has been no response), and repeated this in the submission.
Despite our objection to the short process, JoburgCAN has submitted as detailed a response as we could provide in the limited time allocated.
View all of the issues raised in the JoburgCAN submission on the OUTA website here.
JoburgCAN is an initiative of OUTA and was established to improve service delivery, engage in local government affairs, and foster community within the City. JoburgCAN represents affiliates and supporters residing in all seven regions of the City. As a properly established community-based organisation, JoburgCAN acts in unity and on behalf of its affiliates and supporters.