Nelson Mandela Bay Executive mayor, Athol Trollip, said that R200m in service delivery projects will grind to a halt, due to a populist partnership between the EFF and ANC in Nelson Mandela Bay.
This, after opposition parties, voted against what he said was a “pro-poor” budget and “stealing service delivery from the city’s poorest residents.”
Trollip is the target of an EFF campaign to punish to the DA for not supporting its motion in parliament on land expropriation without compensation.
EFF leader, Julius Malema, said his NMB councillors will be bringing a motion of no confidence in Trollip on 6 April.
In a lengthy statement late Thursday afternoon, Trollip said that due to the adjustment budget, totaling around R600m, not being passed, the “Metro Police are now unable to purchase new vehicles, which were meant to fight gangsterism in the city’s Northern Areas and townships.”
He said R3m was allocated for this in the failed adjustments budget. “Any blood spilled in this war against crime is on the hands of the EFF and ANC.,” Trollip said.
Trollip went on to say that “R13.3 million that was meant to go towards public lighting in the city’s darkest communities will have the ANC and the EFF to thank for their dark and unsafe streets”.
Unpacking further expenditure plans now put on ice, Trollip that R45m was meant to be adjusted to improve sanitation and water infrastructure in Motherwell, Wells Estate, Khayamnandi and KwaLanga with a further R39 million budgeted for water leaks detection.
“The opposition chose to reject this important service delivery initiative because their focus is a populist agenda that only suit themselves, and keeps residents using the bucket system,” he added.
“This coalition government proposed an adjustment of R10 million, meant for the tarring of gravel roads in township communities. R2m of this was for Ward 17 alone, an ANC ward, near the symbolic Red Location Museum. Instead, the ANC and EFF would rather our residents be subjected to undignified, untarred, gravel roads.”
Trollip said R67 million was meant to be budgeted for vacancies in the Metro, from which the insourcing of security officials, something the EFF initially supported, was meant to be funded.
Highlighting some of the DA-led coalition successes, Trollip said that by June, “this government will have created 8000 job opportunities through EPWP. We have launched the first ever Metro Police Force.”
He said over 30km of road had been tarred, while the Metro’s eradicated 5000 bucket toilets.
“We are in the best financial position we have been in for over five years,” Trollip said.
“It is clear that the ANC and EFF do not want services to be delivered to our city’s poor. They are power hungry populists more interested in lining their own pockets than delivering services to the people,” he said.
“The voting down of this adjustments budget, led by the ANC and EFF, is a horror for the city’s poor,” Trollip said.
