Correspondents Hans (of Port Alfred) and Erich must be commended for their response to the collective wail over the National Treasury’s fiscal discipline (“Funding freeze”, The Herald, July 10).
In Thursday’s Herald, both columnist Lubabalo Cengani and the Nelson Mandela Bay Civil Society Coalition attacked the Treasury (“Punishing municipalities only hurts growth, service delivery” and “Civil society warns funding freeze could hit residents hardest”).
And while it is true that the residents will suffer further because of the Treasury’s withholding of funds, it is the delinquent municipalities that must accept the blame for the plight of residents.
What both Cengani and the coalition are actually calling for is the opening of a floodgate of funding so that the same agents of malfeasance can misuse, waste, underspend and steal that money — which benefits nobody but those same officials who have betrayed the public by abusing their positions.
The lesson to take from this situation is not that the Treasury should release the funds, but that the officials, both elected and appointed, should be swept away in the upcoming municipal elections and replaced by those who will spend the money efficiently for the benefit of the ratepayers.
Anyone and everyone who has a vote should cast it for candidates (both directly elected and proportional) who will not waste public funds, but restore their decayed municipalities.
Not removing the agents of neglect and waste will be the worst thing the voters can do in November.
Mike Oettle, Newton Park