As the countdown to the November Local Government Elections continues, VOC’s “Meet the Mayors” segment is giving listeners the opportunity to hear directly from mayoral candidates, understand their priorities and hear their vision for the future of local government.
For the second instalment of the series, the VOC Breakfast team sat down with GOOD Party Secretary-General and Cape Town mayoral candidate Brett Herron.
Herron spoke about some of the financial pressures facing households in the city and what he believes can be done to make municipal services more affordable.
He says the City needs to take a closer look at its spending and eliminate what he describes as unnecessary expenditure, arguing that this could reduce the financial burden on residents.
“We must remember that the revenue that the city generates from residents through property rates, electricity sales, water sales, sanitation and waste removal services, all of those tariffs, is what funds all the programmes that are in the city,” Herron said.
He says reviewing the City’s budget and cutting waste could reduce its revenue requirements and create room for more affordable services.
“We need to look at the budget so that we can see what we can reduce in the budget that is wastage,” he said.
“We can make electricity more affordable by adhering to NERSA’s tariffs. We are currently about 20% more expensive than what it used to be,” Herron said.
Herron says reducing unnecessary expenditure and reviewing municipal tariffs should form part of efforts to ease the financial pressure on Cape Town households.
Listen to the full interview with GOOD Party mayoral candidate Brett Herron below.
Photo: VOCfm
