R1bn from national human settlements department for flood-ravaged KZN

KwaZulu-Natal will receive about R1bn from the national department of human settlements after thousands of houses were destroyed during the floods this week.

Minister of human settlements Mmamoloko Kubayi and MEC for human settlements and public works Jomo Sibiya visited Molweni and KwaNyuswa on Friday morning. 

Afterwards Kubayi announced the preliminary assessment report from the provincial department of human settlements indicated there were more than 13,500 households  affected with just over 3,927 houses destroyed and 8,097 houses partially destroyed.

To ensure an immediate response, funding was reprioritised in line with section 6 (a) of the Division of Revenue Act.

“This has allowed that the human settlements grants mentioned above be reprioritised to alleviate the impact of the disaster. To put this into effect, a revised cash flow was submitted to National Treasury on April 14 and positive response has been received.

“The payments will be processed next week. This will allow an amount of approximately R1bn to flow to the province from the national department of human settlements,” the provincial department of human settlements said.

Consultation is also under way to reprioritise eThekwini's two sources of funding — R539.143 from the Urban Settlement Development Grant (USDG) and an additional amount of R143m that was recently allocated to the Informal Settlements Upgrading Partnership Grant (ISUPG).

The Community Schemes Ombud Service will contribute about R30m of the balance of the retained surplus in the 2020/21 financial year subject to approval by the National Treasury.

The National Homebuilders Registration Council will also support the province in conducting technical assessments to determine the extent of structural damage to homes.

“In addition, the NHBRC will reprioritise its operational budget to provide for corporate social investment (CSI).

“An amount of R150m from the Residential Rent Relief Grant will be reallocated to the disaster relief endeavours, subject to requisite approval processes.

“National Housing Finance Corporation (NHFC) will also contribute an additional R2m from their corporate social investment. This means that in total NHFC will contribute R152m. This entity will also avail their project management capacity for the rebuilding and reconstruction of houses in KwaZulu-Natal.

“The auditor-general will be brought in to ensure integrity in the distribution of resources.

“We will do everything in our power to ensure that resources we put for the disaster relief reach the intended beneficiaries and are used for the intended purpose,” said Kubayi.

“In this regard, the auditor-general’s office will work closely with us to keep a close eye on the utilisation of the resources. The department of monitoring and evaluation will be working closely with us to monitor both the financial and the non-financial performance of this intervention.”

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