Budget Meeting at Pellsrus Hall

[Paul Hjul]

My own personal report back on the meeting:

The Municipality's standard approach towards public participation is persisting with regard to piloting the budget and imposing an ill conceived and impractical collection of spreadsheets that fails to ensure the financial recovery of the municipality. Part of this approach is to fail to set schedules and to advertise meetings - or when meetings are advertised to change or cancel them at the 11th hour. This approach is simply not conducive to the proper running of business and is both a symptom and a cause of the chaos that is Kouga. It should come as no surprise then that the meeting at Pellsrus Hall on on the 7th May ended in disaster with everybody actually unhappy. There is however a positive to be taken from the experience which I will return to.

I think it is important to note that the Municipal Manager (by and large) attempted to run a well ordered meeting and carried his office with considerably greater dignity than the majority of officials (elected and appointed) of the Kouga Municipality who didn''t have the courtesy to attend or send proper apologies. Unfortunately for Mr Fadi though, his very job was to defend the undefendable. Moreover his salary is such that he should anticipate taking criticism for the failings of both the political authorities - in particular the Mayor - and the administration. Similarly the two officials who were charged with presenting the budget did their level best to make a presentation that would solicit positive feedback, however if you present garbage you can't expect a reply that isn't garbage. There are critical problems with making a presentation that is light in detail and then wanting specific suggestion. As a result the only suggestion to arise was that the more than a million rand of own funds allocated towards aggrandizing the institution of Kouga and providing luxury for the councillors should be reallocated towards fire services, Mr Fadi erred in seeking to defend the entitlements of the councillors and seemed oblivious to the hypocrisy of suggesting that council should sit in luxury whilst the public are ... "Four legs are good, two legs are better" and "do as I say, not as I do" are two ideas that come to mind.

As a basic matter of procedure when a motion of no confidence is brought against the person chairing such a motion should be considered such that the chair can be resumed as quickly as possible - it simply does not serve democracy for there to be general conflict between the person occupying the chair and the meeting as a whole. Of course a motion of no confidence can only be brought by the participants of a meeting and not mere observers who may be given an option to ask questions within certain scopes. We must conclude, by the failure to consider resolutions at the meeting, that the public were not participants but observers there to be "workshopped" into accepting what was preordained. 

To address this shortcoming I proposed that a separate meeting chaired by a member of the public be held to consider resolutions and after the  breakdown of the meeting this is what took place. With less tact, and regard for democracy, than he had hitherto shown Mr Fadi made it clear that such a meeting could not be held in the hall, which is "council facilities" (I might add here that this is the problem, Council has the attitude that it owns the municipality and that the public are subservient to it, instead the Council needs to accept that the Council is the custodian which must serve  the public interest) and subsequently resolved two similar motions - one in English and one in Afrikaans.

The English motion so adopted unanimously was as follows:

We as residents and ratepayers of wards 3,2,8,11,14 and 15 reject the draft budget, for among other reasons:

·         The budget fails to address the needs of the local community;

·         The budget imposes rates and charge increases that are unaffordable and are far in excess of inflation;

·         The budget makes no provision for the Council settling with its creditors of more than 30 days;

·         The budget has not been prepared by a Budget Steering Committee as required by law.

We take offence that the Mayor and mayoral committee failed to attend the meeting and that instead they required the Municipal Manager to perform a political rather than administrative function in hosting public meetings where he is tasked with defending the undefendable.

We find that the Mayor and Council have failed to comply with the Municipal Finance Management Act and that they have not followed the correct procedures. This is undermining public participation with the budget.

We resolve that if the Kouga Local Municipal Council adopts and approves the budget as it was presented tonight that we will embark on all available and lawful forms of public protest.

Paul

[Ludwig Vorster]

Hi Paul ,I fully agree with your motion and regarded the presented draft budget as an incomplete , poorly prepared ,not zero based flimsy document and found it very difficult to follow when figures are randomly thrown around without any proper knowledge of the financial controls and priorities .The AG Report for 2012 has many findings which provides an adequate basis for a qualified report .There are many items that do not comply with Laws and Financial regulations .This draft budget is not worth the paper it is written on and I believe this Municipality is on the road to total Financial disaster .They need a serious austerity program to be implemented very soon as the situation has not improved since the last 2011 budget .I gladly accept your invitation to embark on all Lawful protests .This information should be seriously communicated to the greater portion of residents of the Kouga area .I still can not find any evidence where the EMF levy is disappearing too and what happened to the previous collected millions .There are many non compliances happening in this Municipality and it is accepted as normal practices .

Thanks Ludwig

 

[Garth Ford]

Hi

Thank you Paul - for your most descriptive , concise and relevant explanation , argument and discussion  ( as I have discerned from first glance )  .

I consider it mostly as educationl  and very good advice and advocacy .Thank you . 

I would like to keep it as simple and constructive and productive as possible . I will elaborate soon .

Thank you again for your educated and complimentary input - I will comment as soon as I have time to read , understand and study the above - thank you .

Have a relaxed and enjoyable weekend .

Kind regards 

From 

Garth 

Garth Ford

Chairman - Jeffreys Bay Residents Association/Jeffreysbaai Inwonersvereniging

078 234 9791  042 293 3843   ch...@jbayra.com - www.jbayra.com

On Wed, May 8, 2013 at 4:27 PM, Ludwig Vorster <ludvo...@telkomsa.net> wrote:

Hi Paul ,I fully agree with your motion and regarded the presented draft budget as an incomplete , poorly prepared ,not zero based flimsy document and found it very difficult to follow when figures are randomly thrown around without any proper knowledge of the financial controls and priorities .The AG Report for 2012 has many findings which provides an adequate basis for a qualified report .There are many items that do not comply with Laws and Financial regulations .This draft budget is not worth the paper it is written on and I believe this Municipality is on the road to total Financial disaster .They need a serious austerity program to be implemented very soon as the situation has not improved since the last 2011 budget .I gladly accept your invitation to embark on all Lawful protests .This information should be seriously communicated to the greater portion of residents of the Kouga area .I still can not find any evidence where the EMF levy is disappearing too and what happened to the previous collected millions .There are many non compliances happening in this Municipality and it is accepted as normal practices .

Thanks Ludwig

 

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[Kurt Mariano]

Thanks You guys    really glad The RatePayers are starting to look into the management of this great town.

Sure hope we can get it functioning properly in the years to come.

thanks for your interest and work.

Kurt

[Erena Slabbert]

Why is Paradise Beach not part of the Jeffreysbay Ratepayers, surely this is the beste to do? Please can you look into the problem.  If it was not for your info I could just as well live on the Moon.

Erena

[garthford]

Dear Erena

 

Thank you for that comment - JBRA in my opinion includes your areas - but we would like to re establish these ties

and extend our RA Agenda .

 

- you are part of us , and we are part of you - through FEKRRA and

closer pending ties as well .

This is exactly my point .

I am recently elected Chairman of JBRA and I consider us as a prominent representative of the Kouga region as a whole ( since KM is based in J.Bay ) - I would like to encourage you to get more involved in our local RA initiatives .

The only other avenue for our local conglomeration and co operation is FEKRRA - which is the amalgamation and

consideration of all Residents Associations in the Kouga area - which is as you know quite vast .

 

- as such we would like to conglomerate and communicate with all sub regions and regions around us .

 

- we will be communicating with   St Francis Bay , Oyster Bay , Humansdorp etc... via FEKRRA . 

 

I would very much like to amalgamate productive co operation , communication and development

of our Ratepayers Associations in our region in any way that I can .  

 

As far as I know the RA of Aston Bay and Paradise Beach are mainly made up of the Block Watch Members .

 I encourage you to become a Member or a Committee Member of your local Residents and Ratepayers Association and encourage Residents to become more aware of RA services and assistance in general in our area .

 

I am also trying to encourage a better developmental co operation  between Permanent Residents and Ratepayers  

and also " Temporary Residents "  ( those who own property and pay rates but who do not live here but pay rates - and are planning to live and settle here ) .

 

I look forward to hearing from you in the near future.

 

I trust that this helps .

 

Kind regards

 

 

From

 

Garth Ford

JBRA - Chairman

E-Mail : ch...@jbayra.com

Cell : 0782349791

 

 

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