Nelson Mandela Bay infrastructure upgrades hit a snag

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The upgrading of informal settlements and infrastructure in the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro in the Eastern Cape has hit a snag.

The National Treasury has cut the grant funding to the Metro by more than R171 million due to underspending.

The two affected allocations are the urban and informal settlement grants.

In the current financial year, the Metro only managed to spend close to 40% of the Treasury grant, after setting a target to spend more.

Nelson Mandela Bay Mayor Gary van Niekerk says a plan of action is in place to address this matter.

He says, “We need to commit that money, we need to put projects in place once that money is committed. We will sign projects and make the commitment to Treasury that indeed this money will be spent.”

Opposition parties have blamed the underspending on a lack of planning from the coalition government.

They say this will have a negative impact on service delivery in the city.

Democratic Alliance (DA) Caucus leader Retief Odendaal says, “What we have here is a government that the latest cuts gazetted last week indicating the cuts was going to fulfill another R 172 million, it highlights the inability of Nelson Mandela Bay to spend their money to make progress by the end of February. Two-thirds into the financial year the city was standing at 29%, we need more than one-third. ”

The United Democratic Movement (UDM) Councillor Luxolo Namette says, “As the UDM, we are disappointed and we are saying to the current coalition, this is unfair to our taxpayers’ money of NMB, so we are disappointed. The current coalition is incompetent.”