Nelson Mandela Bay mayor Babalwa Lobishe has vowed there will be consequences after the 2025/2026 adjustment budget was not tabled in council on Thursday.
Lobishe said she had not seen a copy of the adjustment budget and requested speaker Eugene Johnson to reconvene another meeting within seven days.
An adjustment budget must be tabled and adopted by the end of February, failing which it contravenes the Municipal Finance Management Act.
Acting city manager Sizwe Mvunelwa must now write to co-operative governance MEC Zolile Williams to explain this noncompliance.
Lobishe said a council meeting was initially scheduled for Tuesday but was postponed to Thursday to table the adjustment budget.
However, the budget was still not presented.
“We know speaker that a CFO was appointed on January 31, but to this day we have not seen or politically influenced the tabling of the adjustment budget.
“After that, I have met [Mvunelwa] and the CFO [Jackson Ngcelwane], and the acting city manager committed on implementing the necessary consequence management.
“So I will wait for that report,” she said.
Ngcelwane told councillors the budget would be ready by the next meeting.
“I can assure I am busy with the report which ought to be finished today.”
This drew criticism from ANC councillor Gamalihleli Maqula, who had requested Ngcelwane to explain to the council why the report was not ready.
“This document is part of a compliance meeting, and in terms of the MFMA, we should have dealt with this before February 28.
“We knew before the end of the year where we are not performing well in terms of the budget.
“All of those reports are coming from the different departments to the CFO, and he was supposed to consolidate them all and make one report. Why was that not done?
“This is about compliance and not just a matter of moving the meeting by another seven days,” he said.
DA councillor Werner Senekal said the administration needed to get its act together.
The council then adjourned for lunch.
Outside the Feather Market Centre, about 100 members of the Mayibuye Civic Movement protested as they wanted to sit in the public gallery.
A letter from the director in the speaker’s office, Dumisane Mbebe, had only allowed 25 people to be let in.
After lunch, the council rammed through several budget amendments and virements, including funding for the Nooitgedacht phase 3 project and the provision of overtime payments.
The meeting was abruptly ended by Johnson after she refused to table a notice of public importance submitted by DA councillor Annette Lovemore on the city’s service delivery charter.
Johnson left while councillors remonstrated about filing the motion seven days ago and no reason not to debate the issue.
Speaking on the sidelines of the meeting, Ngcelwane said a part of the delay was caused by the budget being in a deficit.
“I cannot present that to the council because that will be a strike on my record as the CFO.
“It’s not only a National Treasury requirement, but the council adopted a resolution that a deficit budget cannot be adopted.
“It must be a surplus or at least balance; that is what we are also busy with,” he said.
Ngcelwane said they had technical problems at the weekend during the update of the IT system.
“We could not access the system, and then on Monday, we had load-shedding, which further delayed the process.”
The Herald
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