The municipal council has approved the total budget for the 2010/11 financial year. Executive Makana Mayor Vumile Lwana presented the capital and operating budgets of this financial year to the council for approval.
The municipal council has approved the total budget for the 2010/11 financial year. Executive Makana Mayor Vumile Lwana presented the capital and operating budgets of this financial year to the council for approval.
He said that the Municipal Act requires the council to approve the proposed annual budget at least 30 days before the start of the financial year.
The Executive Mayor is looking at total salary which includes transport and cellphone allowance of R645 235; full-time councillors at about R474 000; and part-time councillors about R194 000.
The Municipal Manager and directors’ allowances also increased by 9.5% including a 14% performance bonus. The Municipal Manager will have a package of R1.1-million and the five directors are looking at R871 000 each, of which R107 000 is the performance bonus.
The operational budget for the next financial year is R256 717 030 and the capital budget is R69 596 100. Included in the total budget are all Capex grants and receipts as well as internal funding amounting to R69-million in terms of the new Generally Recognised Accounting Practice or Generally Accepted Municipal Accounting Practice requirements (Grap/Gamap).
“The new National Treasury requirements, which are informed by Grap require that all Capital Grant Receipts such as MIG [Municipal Infrastructure Grant] be incorporated into the operating income, hence you see a difference of R69.6-million between operating income and operating expenditure,” explained Lwana.
The total operating expenditure has increased from R212.6-million for the 2009/10 approved budget to R256.7-million for the 2010/11 budget.
According to the report from the Municipal Manager: “The increase among other factors could be as a result of budgeted vacancies amounting to about R5.2-million as well as the inclusion of items such as implementation of the retention strategy amounting to R1.5-million”.
The retention strategy will address the municipality’s challenge of not being able to retain staff for a long period.
Increases within the operating expenditure budget provide Town Planning with a 116% increase, which Lwana said R4 000 000 will be spent on the formalisation of areas utilised for the layout plan in preparation for housing development handled by the provincial housing department.
Other increases in the operating expenditure budget are Municipal Manager executive support which is at 74%; human resources at 71%; and financial administration which received a 59% increase.
