R14m for municipality to show off
Anger is growing over the eThekwini municipality’s plans to spend R14m on a campaign to boast of its “achievements”.
|||Durban - Anger is growing over the eThekwini municipality’s plans to spend more than R14 million on a campaign to boast of its “achievements”, which opposition parties say is a blatant use of public money to campaign for the ANC in an election period.
According to a recommendation by the municipality's governance and human resource committee and approved by the city’s executive committee this week, R14.5 million will be spent on a “achievement awareness campaign” - highlighting the city’s successes over the past five years.
The campaign will see the city’s communication department spend R500 000 alone on Facebook, Twitter, its own website and LinkedIn.
The bulk of the money however will be spent on radio advertising that will get R6m, print media which will get R4m, R2m for billboards and another R2m on posters and flyers.
Opposition councillors are not buying the city’s spin and argue that the campaign constitutes fruitless and wasteful expenditure.
Zwakele Mncwango, DA caucus leader, said the campaign was nothing more than officials using “ratepayer’s money to advance the cause of the ANC in the run-up to the local government elections next year”.
He said with R14m, the city could have built hundreds of houses, electrified thousands of homes or provided basic services to people who need them.
“There are much more pressing needs facing people in the city. Why do we need such a campaign? This is clearly a campaign for the ANC. We need to be serious and rather provide basic services to people than to spend so much money on an awareness campaign,” he said.
Mdu Nkosi, of the IFP, said they found it difficult to support the recommendation without any details.
“They do not tell us which newspapers they will be advertising in or which radio stations. We are not satisfied. We need to know exactly how the money will be spent,” he said.
Mncwango’s views were roundly criticised by ANC councillors on the executive committee, with deputy mayor, Nomvuzo Shabalala saying Mncwango did not know how budgets worked.
“Each department has a budget and those budgets must be spent on what it has been allocated for. You cannot take the budget from one department and use it for another. It’s like taking the money from your bond to pay for something else,” Shabalala said.
“The public needs to know what we are doing and this is one way of telling them,” she said.
ANC councillor, Logie Naidoo said it was important that the city marketed itself.
“If you only read the newspapers you would think that nothing good happens in the city. If some people take it as electioneering then so be it. We read so many negative things and it is good that we tell people what we are doing,” he said.
Zandile Gumede of the ANC agreed.
“In fact I think R14 million is not enough. We have 110 wards in the city and if you break it down that each ward must be told, then you will see that R14 million is not enough. Information is power and people need information,” she said.
Daily News
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