April 2018 Late Final
MID JULY 2017
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Residents not happy with City’s draft budget Several residents from Dunoon and Atlantis lashed out at the City of Cape Town’s draft budget for the 2017/18 financial year, during a public participation process on Tuesday night, 10 April 2018, at the Robinvale Hall, Atlantis. The hall was packed with residents from sub-council 1 which runs from Milnerton in the south, to Altantis and Mamre in the north, and consists of four wards; 23, 29, 32 and 104. Many of the residents who were bussed to the venue, blasted the City’s draft budget which, proposes to increase municipal services as follows; amongst others: water by 26.96%, property rates by 7.20%, electricity
by 8.14%, refuse by 5.70%, and sanitation by 26.96%. However, there is some relief for poorer households and water consumers following the increase in the punitive level 6 water tariff, as this will not apply to these households, if their consumption is less than 10.5-kilolitres. On Wednesday, 28 March 2018, the Executive Mayor of the City of Cape Town, Patricia de Lille, tabled a draft budget totalling R49.1 billion, with R39.8 billion on the operating budget, and R9.2 billion for capital expenditure. In the draft budget, the biggest allocation has been earmarked for water services, which is set to receive R5-billion of the budget with more than R1.4 billion set to be spent
The Dunoon library which is currently under construction is one of the City’s significant projects with R9-million allocated in the draft budget. Photo. Peter Luhanga on drought-related needs. The residents were highly upset at these proposed increases, questioning who exactly had the City consulted, before drafting the budget? Amongst other projects earmarked for significant funding is the Dunoon Taxi Rank which has been allocated R22-million as well as the Dunoon library which was allocated R9-million. Dunoon resident, Kwanele
Jezile, a member of MyDunoon, a not for profit organisation, said that he is not happy with the budget allocations for Dunoon, and particularly the allocation to the Dunoon Taxi Rank. “Taxi rank terminus? Like Really! Why not build a youth development hub/centre? Why not assist young entrepreneurs in the area? Why not the designing of serviced plots for the people of Dunoon? The
taxi terminus has no value for Dunoon residents! I mean, how is it going to change anything? Is it going to improve the lives of Dunoon residents? And who does it benefit? The City or the residents?” questioned Jezile. Jezile said that crime is very high in Dunoon and the perpetrators are the youth, and yet, neglected by the City. CONTINUED ON PAGE 3