Musina Municipality has announced an overall 6% increase in tariffs for the new year but stressed the importance of cutting down on expenditure and maintaining tighter financial control. The mayor, Cllr Mihloti Ethel Muhlope, is also confident that the municipality will be able to sort out its Eskom debt problems.
During last Friday's mayoral budget speech, Muhlope proudly announced that the municipality had received an unqualified report from the Auditor-General. "We are on course to achieve the targets set out in Operation Clean Audit," she said.
Muhlope stressed the importance of intensifying credit control measures to generate enough revenue to fund the municipality's service delivery mandate. "We cannot have a situation where people continue to enjoy services without paying," she said. She said that consumers currently owed the municipality R44,8 million.
Making dents in the Eskom debt
As far as Musina Municipality's own obligations towards their creditors are concerned, Muhlope said that Eskom's threat to cut electricity because of the outstanding debt was of great concern. She explained that, when the current Council took over two years ago, the Eskom debt had stood at R140 million.
"Last year, when I delivered the State of the Municipality address, the debt was standing at R115 million. As I'm speaking now, we have drastically reduced the debt to R53,6 million. We want to assure our people that everything possible is being done to address this matter," she said.
The mayor made it clear that the situation will only improve if cost-cutting measures are enforced. "Unnecessary travelling, avoidable overtime, worthless workshops and futile expenditure must all stop. Any fruitless expenditure must be recovered from the responsible officials," she said.
Mushroom churches and more electricity
Mayor Muhlope made special mention of the problem that new church denominations that popped up across the region posed. "We cannot have a situation where every open space is turned into an illegal church. Most painfully, these illegal churches have no ablution facilities, which is a very serious health risk," she said.
Muhlope highlighted the electricity projects that the municipality is doing in conjunction with Eskom. Thanks to a National Electrification Programme grant, electricity will be provided to four villages, namely Malale (154 connections), Masisi (44 connections), Tanda (138 connections) and Tshikhudini (329 connections). These villages all fall within areas where Eskom has the license to provide electricity.
The Musina Municipality is also in the process of upgrading its electricity infrastructure. Part of this entails replacing copper wire lines with aluminium power lines. Plans are also underway to convert the conventional electricity meters in residential areas to prepaid meters.
Mayor Muhlope touched on the subject of providing in the housing needs that exist by saying that the project to build 600 houses in the Musina urban area was progressing well. "Together with Coghsta, we will construct 400 RDP houses in the rural villages around Musina," she said.
Mining houses to the rescue
The contribution by the major mining companies towards development in the region was highlighted by the mayor. She thanked Exxaro, custodians of the Tshikondeni Mine Closure Legacy Project, for building 36 three-bedroomed houses for deserving beneficiaries at Mutele B and Sanari villages. The project includes a state-of-the art crèche and will cost R16,9 million.
De Beers' Venetia Mine is once again making a massive contribution towards Musina, through which it hopes to transform the socio-economic landscape of the local communities. In the past year, the mining company has assisted learners with grants and bursaries and sponsored additional maths and science classes for Grade 10 to 12 pupils. "They assisted with payment of salaries to additional educators and school administrators at three schools in Musina at a total contribution of over R3 million," said Muhlope.
The mining company has also spent R3,2 million on upgrading various streets in Musina Town. A further R6 million was spent on developing the infrastructure at three schools, namely Musina Secondary, Maroi Primary and Fholovhodwe Primary.
In the next financial year, Venetia Mine has committed to assisting with various projects, which include a school support programme (R3 million), the renovation of the Sovetso Community Crèche (R2 million), the upgrading of various roads within Musina (R11 million), a school-infrastructure-development programme (R6 million) and assisting with water-provision projects (R2 million). "De Beers Venetia Mine is doing a lot to improve the lives of our people," Muhlope said.