Its budget and treasury department said the only way it could raise the money needed to insource more security staff would be to increase property rates by 2.5%.
This was rejected on Tuesday by councillors serving on the corporate services portfolio committee‚ who said the bean counters had to come up with more creative ways of finding the money.
In the meantime‚ the municipality is incurring unauthorised expenditure due to its continued use of private security firms.
In November‚ the council took a decision to absorb about 460 security guards who were employed by private firms contracted to the city – to save the metro money.
This article first appeared on HeraldLIVE