Featured Post

PROFILE : My journey to Professional Registration - Innocent Gininda

Posted by on
Innocent Gininda shares his journey to becoming a registered Professional Engineer (PrEng), emphasizing the importance of mentorship, early preparation, and understanding ECSA requirements. He offers advice to aspiring PrEngs, highlighting the value of diverse feedback and a positive mindset. My journey to becoming a registered Professional Engineer (PrEng) culminated successfully in November 2024. I was fortunate to begin my career at a company with a Commitment and Undertaking (C&U) Agreement with ECSA and a robust mentorship program. This commitment to training engineers to the standard required for Professional Registration provided me with essential resources and a structured path to track my experience against ECSA requirements. Early exposure to these expectations instilled a positive outlook on registration and solidified my desire to achieve this milestone. My views on Professional Registration have remained consistently positive throughout this journey. Working alongside ...
2

COMMENTARY: Underspending on repairs and maintenance impacting Joburg infrastructure

Posted by on
In January 2014, the National Treasury published Municipal Finance Management Act Circular no. 71, which mandated that municipalities allocate at least 8% of the carrying value of their property, plant, equipment, and investment property to repairs and maintenance activities. This directive aimed to ensure that municipalities prioritize the upkeep and preservation of their assets.


A civil society group called Organization Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) has, through its initiative JoburgCAN, highlighted that the city of Johannesburg consistently under-budgets for essential repairs and maintenance tasks. The city's financial reporting also lacks accuracy and consistency, with significant variations in numbers from year to year without any explanation.

JoburgCAN analyzed the city's reported spending on repairs and maintenance from 2014/15 to 2023/24, along with the projected spending for 2024/25. This analysis covered a period of ten years since the Treasury set a standard of 8% for maintenance spending, equivalent to 8% of the carrying value of the city's property, plant, and equipment investments. However, there are concerns about the adequacy of the actual spending over the decade. In 2014/15, the city spent R3.44 billion on repairs and maintenance, which represented only 6.3% of the value of its property, plant, and equipment.

The highest spending is projected for the current year, 2023/24, with the draft budget for 2024/25 indicating the city's expectation to achieve 7.4% spending on repairs and maintenance by the end of June.

This inadequate level of spending on repairs and maintenance raises concerns about preventing breakdowns and interruptions to service delivery. It may also suggest that the municipality is experiencing cash flow problems, making it unable to prioritize repairs and maintenance of existing assets or acquire new ones.

The full hardhatCOMMENTARY can be read in Engineering News, follow our WhatsAPP channel for more hardhatICOMMENTARIES here .

Comments

Post a Comment