It is easy to be critical of municipalities with declining service delivery and increasing charges, but the municipal system is highly complex, says eThekwini infrastructure planning strategic executive Ken Breetzke.

“The challenge is to align the thinking of senior management across the organisation, otherwise coordinated strategy fails,” Breetzke told the twelfth Infrastructure Dialogue, held in Johannesburg last month.

The topic for the dialogue was Municipal Infrastructure Investments Framework – Planning Till 2019.

The first dialogue in this series took place in June 2009, the topic being the Municipal Infrastructure Investment (MIIF). At that dialogue, the key findings of the then MIIF Round 5 analysis were debated.

Some of the findings included that significant capital expenditure would be required over ten years if the infrastructure service backlogs were to be met by 2014 and to ensure infrastructure growth and renewal.

Total capital expenditure of about R47-billion a year over ten years was predicted, requiring between R15-billion and R24-billion to be borrowed each year (depending on the infrastructure levels of services adopted), in addition to capital grants available to municipalities from the national government.

eThekwini has an annual capital budget of around R6-bilion and an operating budget of R18,5-billion.

Breetzke added that, for the 2013/14 budget, eThekwini is under huge pressure and the Municipal Services Financial Model is being used to force the budget down from around R6-billion (currently, including all funding) to R4,5-billion, which is a more sustainable position.

The intention of the spatial/geographic review of projects is to ensure that eThekwini targets key areas, such as promoting key public transport corridors by ensuring that budgets are committed for all infrastructure, rolling stock, social facilities and the fast-tracking of planning approvals and urban management within these corridor areas.

“Spatial planning will feature strongly in the next few months and an additional R2-billion in funding is needed to achieve the desired targets and for eThekwini to run sustainably,” noted Breetzke.

He pointed out that the municipality needed a stronger focus on economic growth to fund social programmes and that public housing should no longer be the driver.

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