Rates increases to pay for 2010

City warns on extra costs for 2010 stadium

Another one of those... "but we told you so" .... stories

Project already R685m over budget.

The burden placed on the City of Cape Town to meet the shortfall of R1.9 billion over the next three years to host the 2010 World Cup could delay the improvement of services in the city next year and the appointment of staff.

The city's 2010 team is expected to submit a revised budget requirement list to the council's budget committee this week, after telling the committee on Friday that it needed R450m more in operational spending during the 2009/10 financial year to meet shortfalls on developing the stadium precinct, the Green Point common and the urban park.

Meeting these requirements alone would require an extra 27% in the city's rates income.
Budget committee chairman Ian Neilson said the city could not afford this and the 2010 team had to reduce the request to R300m.

Today, the council's DA and ANC caucuses are expected to receive briefings by its officials on the 2010 budget to decide how it will plug the funding gaps over the next three years.

The stadium is already running R685m over budget and from an original cost of about R3bn, is now projected to cost at least R4.5bn.

The director of budgets, Johan Steyl, said the rates increases that would have to pay for the extra funding requests of the city's various departments would not be "palatable".
Over the past three weeks, the budget committee has been considering the extra funding requests from various departments, but Steyl said it was unrealistic to increase the city's revenue by 69% to satisfy them.

Steyl has proposed cutting salary hikes for council staff from 13.89% to 11.5%, increasing tariffs by an average of 11.5% and not 8% as suggested, transferring 10% of electricity sales to the rates account, and using 4% of funds allocated for the attrition of staff in rates-funded departments.
The city would replenish the money saved on vacancies in the next financial year, in the 2010/2011 budget.

Neilson said this would allow the city to get through the "2010 bubble".

The city cannot afford to maintain its infrastructure, schools or hospitals, but for the vanity of our politicians we can spend this money on a white elephant stadium.

The shocking reality of a government day-hospital in Cape Town Health department.

Thami Mseleku told MPs in parliament last month that South African hospitals led the world “from a clinical point of view”.

Ironically, a visit to the Robbie Nurock Day Hospital - a hospital only a stone’s throw from Parliament showed a facility falling into ruin through shameful neglect.

DA MP Mike Waters, upon visiting the hospital declared: “While the disintegration of any health facility is a disgrace, the fact that a hospital so close to a centre of power should be in such a state shows exactly how blind the ANC is to the conditions faced by the poor.”

IS THIS THE HEALTH CARE SOUTH AFRICANS DESERVE? See pictures