kougademocrat

A Council meeting was held in Jeffreys Bay yesterday, with the draft annual budget being the main item on the agenda.

The following tariff increases were proposed:

Property rates: 9 %
Water: 9 %
Sanitation: 9 %
Refuse: 9 %
Electricity: 7.4 %
Environmental Fee: 6 %

The DA argued that all the increases should be no more than 6 % due to affordability.

Only Water (obtained from the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro) and Electricity tariff increases should remain the same as Kouga has no control over these services.

However, the above increases were adopted by the Council.

The total operating revenue for the Kouga Municipality is being budgeted at R 637 931 Million, while total operating expenditure is budgeted at R 685 833 Million, leaving a shortfall of R 47 902 Million.

Capital expenditure is budgeted at R 67 975 Million, which the DA believes is too low to cater for the infrastructural problems facing Kouga.

The budgeted income is expected to come from the following primary sources:

Property Rates – R 148 563 Million
Electricity – R 224 482 Million
Water – R 53 124 Million
Sanitation: R 40 787 Million
Refuse: R 24 979 Million

The main expenditure types are:

Staff: R 233 201 Million
Bulk purchases: R 207 394 – Electricity, Water
Repairs and Maintenance: R 35 999

Non cash flow items:

Depreciation: R 83 123 Million
Debt Impairment: R 30 323 Million

Residents will be able to comment on the budget and have their inputs shortly.

There will also be Finance Portfolio and budget steering committee meetings where more debate around the Budget will be held.

Tags: kouga budget 2016

This entry was posted on March 30, 2016 at 6:46 am and is filed under DA News, Jeffreys Bay. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.