Latest news with #Zitha
The Citizen
15 hours ago
- Business
- The Citizen
Giyani mayor tables infrastructure-focused 2025/26 budget
LIMPOPO – Giyani Mayor Thandi Zitha has officially tabled the municipality's budget for the 2025/26 financial year, focusing on infrastructure development, improved service delivery, and financial sustainability. In her address, Zitha outlined a range of capital projects aimed at uplifting various communities within the municipality, some of which have previously made headlines due to delays or stalled progress. These include the Section E Sports Centre, which has been allocated R10 million for the refurbishment of its vandalised infrastructure, and the Mageva Sports Centre, which also received R10 million for the extension of its pitch. Additionally, R14 million has been set aside for the upgrading of streets from gravel to paving in Section E. A further R5 million has been allocated for the construction of market stalls in Sections A and C, areas situated near Nkhensani Hospital and Letaba TVET College. A significant portion of the budget includes R30.4 million for street upgrades in Khakhala village, R21.9 million for internal street upgrades in N'wamankena village, and R26.5 million for similar projects in Babangu village. 'We have also set aside R11.5 million for basic electricity infrastructure to ensure that households without access to electricity are provided with an essential power supply,' explained the mayor. However, despite these ambitious development plans, the municipality projects a slight decline in income for the 2025/26 financial year, with projected revenue decreasing from R687.8 million in 2024/25 to R673 million in the current financial year starting in July. Nevertheless, revenue from property rates and refuse services continues to play a vital role in the municipality's finances. Meanwhile, for the 2025/26 financial year, income from these sources is expected to total R101.8 million, with a steady increase to R106.4 million in 2026/27 and R111.1 million in 2027/28, as outlined in the Medium-Term Revenue and Expenditure Framework. The mayor emphasised the importance of adjusting tariffs to reflect the actual cost of delivering municipal services in line with the Local Government Municipal Systems Act. According to her, this approach will enable the municipality to generate sufficient revenue to fully cover service costs, ensure sustainable delivery, and invest in critical infrastructure. She also urged residents to settle their outstanding municipal accounts, stating that doing so plays a vital role in enabling the municipality to provide improved services such as water, sanitation, and waste management. 'We have incentives that we give to individuals that settle their accounts with the municipality, such as massive discounts and others, so please use this opportunity to clear your debts and assist in stabilising the municipality's financial position,' she said, urging all residents to pay for municipal services. Meanwhile, the total budget expenditure for the 2024/25 financial year was recorded at R916.8 million. However, this amount has been reduced by R10 million in the following year, bringing the total projected expenditure for the 2025/26 financial year down to R906.8 million. This was welcomed by several opposition parties as a step towards achieving sustainable and cost-saving operations. At Caxton, we employ humans to generate daily fresh news, not AI intervention. Happy reading!
IOL News
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- IOL News
Short Films That Challenge Perspectives: Highlights from the 27th Encounters Festival
THE 27th Encounters South African International Documentary Festival includes a bold, diverse, and boundary-pushing selection of 31 short films in this year's programme packed with features, panel discussions, and community screenings in Cape Town and Johannesburg from 19 to 29 June. Image: Supplied Shorts by their nature succeed on their creative brevity - the filmmakers can distill powerful stories into concise, impactful experiences, providing us with fresh perspectives and a kind of freedom that often sparks bold innovation, says Mandisa Zitha, Director of the 27th Encounters South African International Documentary Festival. The festival includes a bold, diverse, and boundary-pushing selection of 31 short films. The Shorts Section comprises 11 themed short film blocks featuring documentaries from 20 countries offering personal narratives, socio-political commentaries, and defiant accounts that hold a mirror to the lived experiences of a distinctive range of voices. This year's short documentaries have directors confronting issues that span climate justice, gender identity, ancestral land rights, queer desire, and revolutionary memory. Whether poetic or investigative, introspective or confrontational, these films provide deep insights and speak to the world of 'now'. 'Our shorts programme is not only a celebration of form and creativity, but a reflection on our world, and they are fierce and courageous contributions to the documentary form,' Zitha said. Survival against the climate crisis, elements, capitalism, and political forces are traced in the theme 'Currents of Resilience' in the documentaries Guardian of the Well, Undercurrent, Pouring Water on Troubled Oil and Keeper. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ Imposed layers dictating and defining beauty are peeled back in 'More Than Meets the Eye' with Sprouting, and Am I the Skinniest Person You've Ever Seen?, challenging narratives around the body and cultural perceptions. The 'Death by Discrimination' theme faces, head-on, the deadly consequences of systemic prejudice, with The Flow of Resilience and Onthou vi Fredo? offering poetic elegies of memory and defiance. Women's struggles, resilience, and strengths across Africa and the diaspora are the focus of the theme 'In Her Name' with the shorts Before 16, Victoria, and Seeds from Kivu. 'Fragments of a Forgotten Land' unearths buried pasts and living landscapes with poetically rendered documentaries The Rock Speaks, The Sending of the Crows, and Flowers / Flores. Powerful South African reflections on land with ancestral memory and identity feature in the theme 'The Land's Silent Witness' with Umhlaba Wokhokho and Spirits of the Land. Fear, trauma, and the hope of transformation on opposite ends of the economic spectrum are explored in 'Between Fear and Forgetting' with They Dug a Grave in My Heart, Never Come Fetch Me, and Fear Fokol. Breaking taboos and reclaiming sexuality are spotlighted in the theme 'Redefining Desire: From Fear to Freedom' with Slut Club, Unyagoni, and What I Do Not Know Will Not Kill Me. 'Unmasking the Self' is a reflection on identity, towards self-acceptance in the films Message from Anonymous, At the Edge of Skin and Facing Forward. Voices of survival, and resistance against brutal colonialisation are heard in 'Roots of Resistance' with Ahmad Alive, Medallion, The Other Side of Beauty, and Dreams of a Revolution. 'Between the Ordinary and the Uncanny' embraces the seemingly ordinary made extraordinary with The Fries Philosopher and perfectly a strangeness. Encounters takes place at the Labia Theatre and V&A Waterfront Ster-Kinekor in Cape Town and The Bioscope and The Zone @ Rosebank in Johannesburg from June 19 to 29. Cape Times
