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Tshwane mayor plots to revive city’s fortunes
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Tshwane mayor plots to revive city’s fortunes

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

These include the financial stability of the metro, economic revitalization, infrastructure development focusing on energy, water and roads, equitable basic service delivery and maintaining a clean city, regulatory enforcement and inner-city rejuvenation.

Metro plans to revitalize the inner city by identifying city-owned and abandoned properties for private-sector-led mixed-use developments, he said.

This includes affordable accommodation and student accommodation.

“We contacted the Gauteng provincial government regarding underutilized industrial areas such as Ekandustria, Babelegi and Ga-Rankuwa and requested their intervention to revive growth,” Moya said.

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

“A growing economy needs reliable services. We have heard residents’ complaints about frequent power and water outages and aging infrastructure. While the budget limits our ability to immediately fix all infrastructure problems, we can improve capital project management. Our focus will be on taking action. – In the counties and starting suspended projects in informal settlements.

“Our target is to implement robust project management strategies to ensure that 100% of the capital budget is spent by the end of the financial year and that no grant funds are returned due to underspending. One of the key projects will be the revitalization of critical substations, including Kwaga, Nyala and IA.” “We have already met with Minister Ramokgopa regarding these aging facilities and are collaborating with him on a plan to improve them.”

Moya said the city’s Tshwane Ya Tima revenue collection program was 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 that are yielding positive results. The city is on track to achieve a record R4 billion in monthly collections, targeting R4.4 billion. higher than the monthly average of R3.5 billion in previous months.

“It is critical that we create a payment culture. The key to this is from billing customers based on estimates to billing them based on actual readings. Our goal is to achieve 95% actual readings within the first 100 days. As part of this strategy, we also have the city’s 28 companies to classify debt by recovery potential.” “We will do an analysis of the debtor book of Rs.3 billion.”

Moya summarized by saying that the city is now in a position to repay its existing debt to Eskom while reducing debt.

“Fruitful discussions with the Minister of Electricity and Energy and Eskom as an organization are paving the way for a possible out-of-court settlement regarding the outstanding R6.76 billion. This is our top priority.

“Ultimately, our goal is to reduce our debt to Eskom to R5 billion by the end of January and establish cash-backed reserves of R50 million per month, or approximately R150 million in total over 100 days.”

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