Pretoria - Tshwane City manager Johann Mettler has placed a moratorium on spending on staff training, transport to burials of deceased officials and the procurement of goods through petty cash, among other cost-cutting measures he introduced last week.
A communique to such effect was sent to heads of different departments after the council adopted Treasury circulars, which was said to be a step in the right direction in the fight against unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure.
In a circular dated October 12, 2022, Mettler said the decision to restrict budget spending was informed by the current financial challenges faced by the municipality.
He said all departments were requested to put measures in place to reduce expenditure.
In line with the cost-containment policy, he said, departments were barred from spending money on workshop forums, conference fees, corporate gifts, refreshments, travel and subsistence, study tours and catering.
Departments were also not allowed to spend money on stage and sound crew or City official burials and staff training, except in cases with external grant funding.
“Furthermore, departments are requested to slow down and/or stop all expenditure programmes that are not critical. Only critical or essential expenditure aimed at enhancing service delivery should take place. As part of managing liquidity, no further operational work should be awarded to contractors and service providers,” Mettler said.
According to him, departments should use and maximise internal teams to perform most of their operational activities, including maintenance work, until the financial position of the City had improved.
“It is also important to emphasise that individuals who continue to commit the City outside the approved budget will be held personally liable for any work awarded without confirmation of the budget. To this effect, no lifting of the budget will be allowed.”
He said the City was accelerating credit control measures in a bid to recoup the billions of rand owed by government departments, entities, businesses, embassies and residential customers.
On two occasions this year the City was called out by Eskom for failing to service its debt of R1.6 billion.
At some stage Eskom threatened to disconnect bulk power supply to the municipality due to the non-payment of its electricity account, but that was never executed.
Mettler said: “The City also launched the amnesty campaign that was aimed at encouraging customers who have tampered with their water and electricity connections to come forward and apply for amnesty to avoid being prosecuted and facing hefty penalties for transgressing the law.”
In July, Tshwane was flagged for incurring the largest amount of irregular expenditure of R2.7bn, followed by Joburg’s R1.1bn.
Pretoria News