GEORGE NEWS - The George Quarterly Budget Monitoring Report for the third and fourth quarters (April to June) of the 2019/2020 financial year were tabled at a special council meeting last Friday, 31 July. 

Mayor Leon van Wyk said during the fourth quarter Covid-19 started to take effect on both businesses and the municipality's customer base. 

"In the nine months up to March we've had billings on an average of R117-million a month and in the last three months of the year our billings were only just under R100-million for a month. 

"The debtors collection within this quarter have dropped to 90% from the usual 95% - 96%. There is a difference of R27-million that we have received less from our normal billings of every month," said Van Wyk.

He said this is an indication of the need for the adjustment budget process that has commenced. Various one-on-one sessions have taken place with each of the directorates. 

Van Wyk said the municipality needs to reduce expenditure by R81-million, of which roughly R41-million should come out of salaries or employee-related costs, and R40-million out of the balance of the municipal expenditure. 

"This is going to be a fairly mammoth task and we are going to have to cut back very strategically to make sure that our core services can continue, and look at where the savings could take place," said Van Wyk. 

"The directorates have all been given instructions by the municipal manager [Trevor Botha] to commence that process and within the next week or two, hopefully, we will be pretty far advanced in completing that exercise."

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