The City of Johannesburg (CoJ) has passed its Adjustment Budget through its Council to see it through to the end of the 2021/22 financial year in June.

The CoJ says the Adjustment Budget is, in various ways, a prudent response to a loan market that is increasingly averse to lending money to municipalities, including metropolitans, which is, in part, owing to a lack of liquidity in the market.

“The broader financial picture faced by local governments across the country is that capital expenditure has largely been funded by cash and grants, with funding from loans being absent.

“The fact that there has been a deterioration in revenue collection, means that we have had to arrest the decrease in our surplus in order to maintain our financial standing, so that we can invest in the future through a properly funded infrastructure expenditure programme,” the city explains in a statement.

Despite the need to rebase its budget, the CoJ says it will be able to deliver on 90% of the commitments in its Golden Start strategy, which encompasses the priorities of the multi-party Johannesburg government formed after the November 2021 elections, for the remainder of the 2021/22 financial year.

However, certain projects that were in the original 2021/22 inherited budget will not be achieved, not because of lack of will but the fact that the former administration did not properly manage the process to get the projects shovel-ready in time, it adds.

The City will endeavour to complete these projects in the next financial year.

The Adjustment Budget sees increased spending on programmes designed to benefit the poor, such as the completion of clinics and the funding of housing projects and improved transport projects.

Some increases include R53-million for Rea Vaya bus rapid transit-related projects; R5.7-million more to complete the Orlando East to University of Johannesburg Soweto bus route; R49-million for public transport facilities in Orange Farm; R136-million for City Power infrastructure projects; R183-million more for bulk water infrastructure projects; just under R300-million for the Johannesburg Roads Agency’s infrastructure projects; and R93-million towards completing housing projects across the city.