City remains in a stable Financial position
The Auditor-General’s report on the city’s finances was tabled before council for adoption recently.
The AG report showed that the city spent its R56-billion budget for its financial year under the Democratic Alliance administration.
The city was able to maintain an unqualified opinion and improve its revenue by 4%.
Austerity measures adopted by the City of Johannesburg yielded as the city saved R487.7-million by reducing self-promoting advertising‚ marketing‚ domestic and international travel‚ consulting and professional fees‚ and conferences and seminars.
“These savings continued into the 2017/18 financial year and will be redirected into critical service delivery areas such as maintenance of traffic lights and street lights‚ repairing potholes‚ informal settlement upgrading‚ and the capacitation of key City departments such as development planning and the valuations unit.
“This has put to an end the ANC’s culture of spending limited resources on luxuries while only 38% of residents in informal settlements in the City had access to basic sanitation services‚” Mashaba said in a statement.
The city achieved a surplus of R2.1-billion and closed the year with cash and cash equivalents of R3.1-billion.
A total of five of the city’s entities received clean audits – an increase from the previous financial year. It was the first time where Johannesburg City Parks and Zoo has achieved this feat in its 15 years of existence. During the year under review‚ the city spent only 78% of its R9.9-billion capital expenditure budget.
“We have already implemented steps to improve the planning‚ implementation and monitoring of capital projects‚ and to maximise spend and the quality of delivery through the use of a capex monitoring tool in the 2017/18 financial year‚” Mashaba said.
Mashaba said City Power suffered cash flow problems as a result of a number of issues outside of its control.
Mashaba said the city needs R170-billion for infrastructure over the next 10 years to deal with its current backlog.
The Mayor ushered praises to work done by the Group Forensic and Investigation Services led by Shadrack Sibiya which he said uncovered over R17-billion in corruption and maladministration‚ resulting in 450 people being arrested.
