MEDIA RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ORDINARY COUNCIL MEETING APPROVES KEY ITEMS TOWARDS SERVICE DELIVERY IMPROVEMENT
ADM HEADQUARTERS – THURSDAY, 28 MARCH 2024.
On 28 March 2024, Amathole District Municipality Council held its ordinary council meeting in Calgary Conference Centre to deliberate, note and approve its tabled items. In his opening remarks Council Speaker Onke Mgunculu emphasized an urgent need to strengthen oversight on service delivery objectives and ensure that council fulfils its mandate. "Every time we gather like this, we talk about the importance of accelerating service delivery in order to change the lives of our people. We must, however, have a practical way to measure this. We must know if we are being successful in our efforts or not" - he said.
Councillors had an opportunity to raise matters of public importance with the majority of which dealing with the importance of Human Rights, the Easter weekend, the upcoming month of April as designated to Freedom Day celebrations as well as the upcoming national elections on 29 May 2024..
Chief amongst the reports by Executive Mayor Anele Ntsangani was the institutional performance, particularly in relation to the basic services delivery and infrastructure investment, a balanced fiscal budget, the core service delivery Engineering Department, the Ngqamakhwe Bulk Water Phase 5 and the Essential User Car Scheme with challenges and remedial actions thereto. With the previously tabled 2024/2025 budget having had a deficit of R180 325 926, Ntsangani said that was no longer the case following the balancing of the budget, which is an exercise of cutting down of the budget items to a point of having an income that equals the expenditure.
The draft budget was approved after a vote with 30 voting for the approval and will be submitted to Treasury for assessment. Also on the agenda was the issue of the ADM office accommodation which the council resolved to explore various short to medium- and long-term avenues in dealing with the issue. Short to medium term, the council resolved that management look for alternative accommodation, while on long term basis, the district will follow up on ADM land in Komga for construction of permanent office accommodation.
The ADM buildings in Amalinda and the CBD will be handed over to Apsire for development. The Speaker closed the council meeting with a report on the past summer initiation season which saw a total of 9561 initiates, 4777 legal schools, 9518 compliant initiates, leaving the difference to misdemeanors that saw two arrests. On the same day, Economic Freedom Fighter Cllr Asanda Matshobeni was sworn in replacing Cllr Zanele Magazi.
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