DA 'left poor out in cold'

THE ANC says the City of Cape Town has failed to spend R1,3 billion of its R4 billion capital expenditure budget - leaving the poor literally out in the cold

The leader of the opposition in Cape Town, Tony Ehrenreich, and ANC chief whip Xolani Sotashe yesterday leaked what they said were internal city treasury figures to the media at a press conference in Cape Town's civic centre.

The financial year for municipalities ends every year on June 30, and so the city's final spending for 2010-11 has not yet been released publicly.

Ehrenreich said less than R5million of the R16,2million set aside for informal settlements had been spent, translating into a purported spend in this area of only 29percent.

"The 300000 to 400000 families living in informal settlements have become second class citizens in a city that proudly contests on the world stage for the World Design Capital of 2014," Ehrenreich said.

He added that though Cape Town had the highest tuberculosis rate in the world, and in some places, only one doctor for every 1000 patients, the city had purportedly only spent R10,5million of its R16,9million budget for health.

Tourism development had a budget of R2,3million but allegedly only spent just over R200000 - less than 9percent of its budget.

"We now know why we are not seeing new tourism entrepreneurs entering the tourism industry" Ehrenreich said.

He accused the city of using the budget as their own "private purse", saying they had spent nearly R500000 on tickets for mayoral committee councillors and executive directors for the North Sea Jazz Festival.

Sotashe said the roads department was allocated R1,5billion but only spent R778million. He also called for the heads of Ian Neilson, the mayoral committee member in charge of finance, and executive directors Hans Smit of housing, and Mike Marsden of roads and transport.

He took a swipe at new mayor Patricia de Lille, saying Neilson was really in charge of the city.

But De Lille said the ANC was only calling her a ceremonial mayor because they were "such bad losers".

Meanwhile, Neilson said the city was still waiting for the final spending results, and that to judge now would be "premature".

He admitted that the city was unlikely to achieve their previous year's record spending of 97percent, and promised an investigation.

Some of the known reasons included a R140million saving on the cost of constructing the 2010 World Cup stadium and "normal delays with government tenders and objection processes that ensure that tenders are allocated fairly and transparently", Neilson said.

He said the national government had also given the city extra money unexpectedly and this "could not be adequately programmed into the capital spending budget".

Neilson said he was not concerned about the ANC's call for him to be axed.

"If they want people fired they must look at the right place. The finance department's responsibility is to get the money . the fact that it was not spent is not the responsibility of the finance department."