This term of governance will soon run its course with the upcoming municipal elections.
Such milestones include:
* The Harambee bus as part of the Integrated Rapid Public Transport Network (IRPTN) will be launched before the end of 2016.
The piloting of Harambee will take place in the middle of this year.
When Harambee is fully operational it will help link the different towns and townships within the metro as well as with its neighbouring cities of Johannesburg and Tshwane.
* Free Wi-Fi is now available at over 1 500 hot spots and used by over 700 000 users.
This project is still growing and will continue to roll out across the region.
* The metro has reduced wasteful expenditure from R20,8 million in the 2013/14 financial year to R1,8 million in the last financial year.
It also reduced its irregular spending from R235 million to R68 million in the last financial year, reducing it by R187 million.
The new era in the metro’s finances can be attributed to, among other interventions, improved quality of management in different departments, not just on governance and risk, but more crucially, in operations and project management.
* The Aerotropolis master plan which places the metro on its way to becoming the first aerotropolis in Africa is one of the legacy projects that were achieved in the last five years.
The master plan projects a new city and narrates a sequence of massive development that will take place in the next 30 years.
* Ekurhuleni is also a good place to invest after its recent four-notch upgrade by Moody’s Investors Services.
This places the City at Aaa national scale rating from the previous A1. It also received a global scale rating of Baa2.
The good credit rating profile, in terms of Moody’s, means Ekurhuleni has an “extremely strong” capacity to meet its financial commitments.
This allows it to raise debt at favourable rates, putting less onerous debt repayment costs on residents.
Ekurhuleni is rated at the high end of the range of South African municipalities.
The municipal debt and service levels are relatively lower than the median of rated metropolitan municipalities.
* Some of the notable gains of the city is the reception of a clean audit two years in a row, declaring the city to be financial healthy for the 2013/14 and 2014/15 financial years.
A clean audit gives practical meaning to the constitutional rights of citizens to expect a clean, transparent, accountable local government by exposing financial practices of municipal management to scrutiny, oversight and possible sanction.
Ekurhuleni and five of its entities received a clean audit outcome.
The Auditor General provides an independent audit of how municipalities manage public funds.
