Despite the fact that their original budget of R3 778 000 had been increased to a whopping R5 214 000, they still went over the new budget by 9%.
COPE's representative, Elrick van Aswegen, gave strong criticism: "Do we really need these extravagant offices with expensive furniture??? We underspent on the budgets for out there [Knysna] but overspent on furniture!"
As shocking as the DA's extravagance is after winning the municipal elections on the promise of austerity, the bigger concern should be that they considered selfish shopping more important than ensuring all the departments spent their 2013/2014 budgets on time:
1. Planning & Development -33%
2. Technical -17%
3. Finance -13%
4. Electrical -11%
5. Community -6%
That amounted to R15 million not being spent on Knysna yet the DA recently voted to take a R15 million loan. Furthermore, they now intend selling prime beach front property, belonging to the taxpayer, for R10 million.
Keep in mind that those directors not doing their jobs are earning over R1 million salary packages and the politicians aren't doing to bad considering they're running a town with only 68 000 citizens. The Knysna Municipality's repeated wearing of their "clean audit" badge diverts the public from what's really going on.
1. The salaries budget has increased by 50% the past 3 years. 2 municipal staff now earn almost R1.5million rand packages. Overwhelmingly, the majority of taxpayers' cash is spent on salaries.
2. The politicians have voted each year to increase their salaries.
3. The R15 million loan, when paid back, will amount to R30 million.
4. There is an expected R1 BILLION shortfall for Knysna infrastructure over the next 15 years!
5. The DA's election campaign involved 3 repeated promises. One of them was "AUSTERITY" which means saving us money. What the hell happened???
Don't mistake this as support of the ANC and COPE! They have DONE NOTHING for Knysna besides talk in Council Chambers. The politicians have failed us completely!