Ratlou commits to "put hands on deck"

Ratlou Local Municipality Executive Mayor, Cllr Matlhomola Jafta, has promised to continue spending on major projects and urged the accounting office to apply consequence management against individuals responsible for failure in spending on their initial plans.

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Cllr Jafta said this while delivering the municipality's Annual Budget of R295.5 million for the financial year 2025/2026 this week.

He said their budget was far less to meet service delivery demands, however, they were forced to "live within our means" and devise plans to render services to communities.

"We are bound to cut on luxuries and commit to spend only on what we have budgeted for and be transparent and accountable with the public's money. The main objective of our operating revenue framework, is to allow our municipality to provide quality services to our community and for us as Ratlou Local Municipality to continue providing such, we need to generate the required revenue in a sustainable manner.

"We must note that in these tough economic times strong revenue management is fundamental to financial sustainability. The reality is that we are faced with development backlogs and poverty. The expenditure required to address these challenges will inevitably always exceed available funding, hence difficult choices must be made in relation to tariff increases and balancing expenditures against realistically anticipated revenues," conceded Jafta.