31 January 2008

By Gabi Khumalo

THE City of Cape Town's annual report for the 2006-07 financial year, reveals that the metro has made significant effort in spending its capital budget and delivering essential services.

Addressing the first sitting of the city council on Wednesday 30 January, Cape Town Mayor Helen Zille said: "Our capital expenditure at R2 billion and 77 percent of the budgeted amount has been the highest so far."

She said the rate of housing delivery also increased by over 100 percent from previous years, adding that the city's procurement processes for the delivery of key projects accelerated by 90 percent.

The city has also received an unqualified report from the Auditor-General, and also received the highest credit rating in the country from international ratings company, Moody's.

She said the award received by the city for being the best city out of the country's 283 municipalities was due to the way in which the municipality dealt with poverty, the level of access to basic services, its economic activity and infrastructure.

"It is clear that we are maintaining this positive trend, but that we still have a long way to go, our rate of capital expenditure reflects a massive increase in productivity.

"Our constitutional mandate is to plan for and deliver basic services including clean water, sewage systems, electricity reticulation, refuse removal, storm water systems and road access," she said.

Mayor Zille also applauded spending R940 million on capital projects by the end of December last year, this is almost double the R520 million spent by December in 2006, and more than the average annual expenditure for the previous five years.

"Considering that last year we managed to spend a record R2 billion, this year, we look to set to break the city's record again, by a substantial margin," she said, adding that operational expenditure is also up by R1 billion from the same time last year.

She raised concern over under utilising on capital budgets in some departments including delays on key projects.

"Many of our housing projects are not being driven as they should be, because we still have a shortage of project managers, these posts are difficult to fill, since there is a national shortage of people with these skills.

"However, as our annual report shows, we managed to create 5 000 housing opportunities in the last two quarters of 2006/2007 as projects got underway, we are likely to deliver about 7000 housing opportunities again this year," she said.

She warned that funds that cannot be spent will be transferred in adjustments budget to projects that are moving more rapidly and new ones.

Projects on pipeline include the Dreamworld film studio project which is expected to create about 7000 jobs. Source: BuaNews