The budget must allocate limited resources to the vast needs of the community and residents as a collective.
Aligning the needs of the people to the budget delivers a budget of the people.
The interesting thing is that drafting of a municipal budget is much like drafting your own household budget – you must just add about nine zeros at the end of each line item and calculate in billions instead of thousands.
This year the budget process was moved forward at the request of the National Treasury, due to the coming local government elections.
The IDP is the backbone of the budget and the guiding document used to allocate resources and money. The IDP, or Integrated Development Plan, must be reviewed annually with the budget, to ensure it remains relevant and reflects community needs.
Every year the public participation process includes a budget meeting in every Customer Care Centre, with people from each and every ward.
During these public meetings the community can scrutinise the budget. Ekurhuleni held public participation meetings in all Customer Care Centres last week, to allow residents to give their input.
The draft IDP and budget are also known as the MTREF (Medium Term Revenue and Expenditure Framework).
The IDP and budget meetings were well attended and residents used this as a platform for residents to tell the political leadership of the city on what must the municipal budget be spent. Mayoral Committee members we deployed to meetings so that they could explain the principals of public participation and allow residents to give input on the budget of their area. This participation process greatly enhances transparency and cultivates a spirit of inclusivity and social cohesion, by delivering a budget of the people.
Among the issues communities raised were the proposed new tariffs, the new valuation roll, credit control and indigent policies, as well as budget proposals related to capital projects across the City of Ekurhuleni.
Residents used the meetings to give input, to influence how development in their area should happen and which programmes must be funded out of the budget.
The public meetings set out to achieve acceptance of the proposals by communities before the draft IDP and budget are approved by the Metro Council at the end of April.
These comments will greatly contribute to delivering the final budget of this term for the city – A Budget of the People. Together we can take Ekurhuleni forward.
