Kouga Municipality’s draft Integrated Development Plan (IDP) and budget for the new financial year, starting July 1, 2020, was approved at a special Council meeting last week ahead of the 21-day Covid-19 lockdown.
Executive Mayor Horatio Hendricks said the draft was a discussion document and that changes may need to be made in view of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We have, unfortunately, had to postpone the public consultation meetings that were set to start early in April.
“Every effort will, however, be made to ensure that the documents can be accessed by all communities for input before the final version is tabled to Council at the end of May.”
According to the draft budget document, the operating revenue for 2020/21 will increase to R919,2-million. That is an increase of 8,61% when compared to the 2019/20 adjustments budget.
Total operating expenditure, including non-cash items, amounts to R 968,9 million.
The major operating expenditure items for 2020/21 are employee-related costs (34,13%), bulk electricity purchases (25,92%) and depreciation (9,21%).
Funding for the 2020/21 Operating Budget is obtained from various sources, the major sources being service charges such as electricity, water, sanitation, environmental management fees and refuse collection (52,96%), property rates (22,86%), and grants and subsidies received from national and provincial Government (15,73%).
The following increases in property rates and service charges have been proposed with effect from July 1, 2020:
- Property rates: 6,5%
- Water: 8,1%
- Sanitation: 7%
- Refuse: 7%
- Electricity (average increase in income): 8,1%
- Environmental Management Fee – 0%
The draft capital budget for 2020/21 is R70,3 million. This is 63,9% less than the 2019/20 adjustments budget due to the drought relief funding that was received for the current financial year,” Hendricks said.
The draft budget is available on Kouga Municipality’s website at www.kouga.gov.za/documentlibrary/finance.
