Tshwane mayor sets out plan to revive city’s fortunes

Moya presented a 100-day action plan that the city believes will serve as a foundation to turn its fortunes around by the end of January 2025.

These include the metro’s financial stability, economic revival, infrastructure development with a focus on energy, water, and roads, equitable basic service delivery and maintaining a clean city, by-law enforcement, and inner-city rejuvenation.

She said the metro plans to revitalise the inner city by identifying city-owned and abandoned properties for private sector-led mixed-use developments.

This includes affordable housing and student accommodation.

"We have engaged the Gauteng provincial government on the issue of underutilised industrial areas such as Ekandustria, Babelegi, and Ga-Rankuwa, urging their intervention to reignite growth,” Moya said.

“These previously thriving industrial hubs now stand as shadows of their former selves, depriving local residents of much-needed job opportunities.

"A growing economy requires reliable services. We have heard residents’ pleas about frequent power and water outages and ageing infrastructure. While the budget limits our capacity to solve all infrastructure issues immediately, we can improve capital project management. Our focus will be on kick-starting suspended projects in townships and informal settlements.

"Our goal is to implement robust project management strategies so that by the end of the financial year, 100% of the capital budget is spent and no grant funding is returned due to under-expenditure. A key project will be the revitalisation of critical substations, including Kwaga, Nyala, and IA. We have already engaged Minister Ramokgopa regarding these ageing facilities and are collaborating with him on a plan to upgrade them."

Moya said the city's Tshwane Ya Tima revenue collection programme is yielding positive results. 

"I am proud to report that the city manager and CFO have made significant progress on this front, with several new measures yielding positive results. The city is on track to achieve a record R4 billion in monthly collections, aiming for R4.4 billion by the end of the financial year. This is up from an average of R3.5 billion per month in previous months.

"It is critical that we establish a culture of payment. Key to this is moving away from billing customers on estimates and billing them on actual readings. Our target is to reach 95% actual readings within our first 100 days. As part of this strategy we will also be doing an analysis of the city’s debtors book of R28.3 billion to classify debt according to potential of recovery."

Moya summarised by saying that the city is now in a position to service its current debt to Eskom while reducing arrears.

"Productive discussions with the Minister of Electricity and Energy, and Eskom as an entity, are laying the ground for a possible out-of-court settlement regarding the R6.76 billion in arrears. This is our top priority.

"Ultimately, our target is to reduce debt owed to Eskom to R5 billion by the end of January and to build cash-backed reserves of R50 million monthly, totalling approximately R150 million over 100 days."

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