April 4, 2006
By Tammy O'Reilly
PASCAL Moloi joined local government 10 years ago during a crucial transition period. He has spent the last five of those years in the key position of Johannesburg's city manager. As his term ends, he reflects on some of his achievements.
Entrusted with running the administrative and financial aspects of the Johannesburg city council, only formed in 2001, he found the infancy of the institution and the absence of benchmarks for the different operations to be some of his biggest challenges.
"My task was to implement key administrative and performance management systems that never existed before. This meant that whatever we undertook or decided for the City had to be sustainable, logical and in everyone's best interest," Moloi says.
Out of this was born Igoli 2002, a three-year plan that called for the selling of non-core assets, the restructuring of certain utilities and the requirement that others become self-sufficient. The result was that in two years the management team took the City from the brink of insolvency to an operating surplus of R153-million.
Moloi says Johannesburg is now able to measure, target and claim major achievements on all fronts. And the one he seems to be most proud of is the City's finances.
The City's successes
"In 1997 Johannesburg had an operational budget of R84-million. Now we are handling a budget of R3-billion. Our accounting practices have been consolidated, we are fully compliant with municipal finance laws and we have compiled an asset register of everything the City owns."
Given that the City of Johannesburg was formed through the amalgamation of several municipalities, the compilation of the asset register was a tedious process. Now it is complete, the net book value of the recorded assets is R9-billion and consists of the value of land and buildings; infrastructure like roads; community assets such as libraries, stadiums and community centers; heritage assets; and other items like furniture and office equipment.
When Moloi was appointed in 1999, municipal debt stood at R7-billion. The City has since written off more than R1,1-billion of that debt, giving it a clearer picture of its financial status.
"I predict that by 2007-08 the City of Johannesburg will receive a clean audit report [from the auditor-general] but this, of course, is dependent on the accounting standards remaining the same or being raised," Moloi says, adding that this could be achieved if pre-audits were conducted frequently during each financial period.
Another project that Moloi counts as a success was the City's handling of the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002. Aligned to this is the hosting of international delegates who visit Johannesburg.
"The City really pulled off the World Summit on Sustainable Development very successfully," Moloi says. "We were novices in planning an event of this magnitude, and its success has shown that the City is capable of expanding and narrowing our conferencing abilities as they are needed."
Moloi also has plenty of praise for Executive Mayor Amos Masondo, saying a culture opposed to corruption now prevails, largely because of his intervention.
"We are striving for a clean record of good governance, and few other municipalities can claim that they have achieved that to the extent that the City has, and that can be attributed to the leadership that the City gets from the mayor."
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