Durban – EThekwini mayor Mxolisi Kaunda has called on municipal departments to plan their projects a year in advance to ensure timeous delivery.
Kaunda implied that part of the problem contributing to the delay in the implementation of projects was that city officials waited until the budget for that particular year had been passed before they started with the planning of the projects.
He was speaking following the tabling of the report by the auditor-general (AG) recently which highlighted several concerns for the municipality.
“What is important about the audit finding is that we need to work from solid findings ... as we continue with all the issues that the AG has raised, we have identified the gaps in the system.
“Part of what has been crippling our department not to spend budget on time, especially on capital projects, was to fix the issue of the procurement plans,” said Kaunda, adding that city manager Musa Mbhele and chief financial officer Sandile Mnguni were working to address this deficiency.
He said the two were putting a system in place to ensure that each department and each unit was able to plan properly for its procurement plans so that “you do not start planning a project when we give you a budget for that financial year, that you start planning a year before. So that you start spending the money by July ( at the start of the financial year).
“Those are the things that we are going to be monitoring, playing our oversight role, that our administration is sticking to such things. Of course there will be leakages in the system, but we are hopeful that our teams will ensure that we spend that money,” he said.