The FF Plus, as part of the coalition government of the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro Council (NMBM), is already busy implementing its strategic governance plan to turn the Metro's sombre audit outcome for the 2021/2022 financial year around.
Officials must also be held accountable for poor service delivery.
NMBM is no better off with the eleventh qualified audit opinion of the Auditor-General (AG), seeing as R362 million in conditional grants was not spent, R1,4 billion in irregular expenditure was incurred, and there was no proper record of municipal assets.
The loss in revenue amounting to R609 million for electricity sales was caused by widespread theft and non-payment.
To limit and prevent such electricity losses, the coalition granted residents an amnesty period until the end of January, so all residents who had been consuming electricity illegally or who tampered with their meters could report it and would not be held liable.
Substations are erected at informal settlements and houses are equipped with prepaid electricity meters, which prevents consumers from obtaining electricity illegally from elsewhere.
Cable theft was also declared a priority in cooperation with the Metro's Safety and Security Directorate, the police and neighbourhood watches.
The report, furthermore, indicates that nearly enough water to fill the Churchill and Groendal Dams was lost during the financial year.
The 40 657 mega-litres in wasted water, valued at R219 million, is a little less in comparison to the 2020/2021 financial year.
The current turnaround time for the repair of water leakages is seven days, but the FF Plus is putting pressure on the Departments of Infrastructure and Engineering, and Water and Sanitation to repair water leakages within 24 hours.
Since the new coalition government took over the Metro four months ago, the backlog with service delivery issues, which it inherited from the former ANC coalition government, has been reduced by about 60%.
In addition, a process is underway to review the spending of all funds to reduce irregular expenditure.
A system, which is currently lacking, that will accurately measure the Metro's performance based on key indicators will also be implemented soon.
Recently, the Metro also succeeded in reducing the average turnaround time for the processing of residential building applications of 500 m² or less to 14 days.
The average turnaround time for finalising business licence applications is just 4,86 workdays.
There is no doubt that the FF Plus and its coalition partners have the political will to turn the NMBM around and govern it successfully for all residents' benefit.
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