WUC debt exacerbates SPTC financial woes
Onalenna Kelebeile | Tuesday May 26, 2015 16:27
The council has received correspondence to the fact that though the request is being looked into, there is no guarantee that additional funding would be granted from the Ministry of Finance.
In an attempt to keep afloat, the local authority is currently operating on an advanced Revenue Support Grant of the second quarter of the year. This means that the council is likely to plunge into further financial woes before the year ends.
The mayor, Amogelang Mojuta told a full council meeting on Wednesday that the council continues to patch road cuts by WUC. The council spent P631,000 on roads reinstatements by last year and the corporation has been invoiced but failed to pay despite several reminders.
“This year alone, WUC has once again made some cuts along Mophane Road, Seolwane Road, Rungwane Road, Molwasekgoma Road, Mandela Drive and Sesame Street. Assessment for the same has been carried out and the reinstatement will cost a sum of P93,176 hence the total outstanding WUC debt is P724,270. Our budget deficit is exacerbated among others by problems of this nature,” Mojuta said.
WUC Selebi-Phikwe branch manager, Lucas Makepe confirmed that they owe SPTC debts, which date back to 2012. He said the council had taken a long time to submit invoices. However, his team plan to meet with the council management to discuss the matter before payment is made.
“The council will then invoice us per a section on the work we agree is ours. They once invoiced us when the road reinstatements stood at half a million pula but we did not agree with the amount,” he added.
Makepe also said his corporation did not include the works in its budget to this amount and said they will have to negotiate on how much to reimburse them. He however promised that something would be done after a team from both institutions had met to conduct assessments of the work carried out.
Meanwhile, Mojuta told the council that WUC is currently engaged in moving from technically insolvent tariffs that are not cost effective into a dimension of financial sustainability, understanding full lifecycle cost of utility, balance sheet between long term debt, asset values, operations and maintenance expenditures and operating revenues as new ventures that will contribute positively to its financial status.
He added that the last Cabinet sitting approved the proposed tariff bands for both portable water and wastewater services. “It is believed that these tariffs are cost effective and would enable the corporation to recover its overhead expenses.
Batswana will be paying for waste water services and the new water rates effected from April 1 this year,” he added. Mojuta also said that the WUC is aware of the current challenges where it is failing to provide reliable and responsive services and inadequate response to customer feedback.
“The corporation is in the process of improving service delivery through a customer orientated process, and reliable water supply. There is also refurbishment of operating infrastructure in the offing, that includes operational technological improvements to minimise resource waste,” he noted.