Flood disaster committee satisfied with clarification on R1bn allocation

Parliament's ad hoc joint committee on flood disaster relief and recovery said it was satisfied with clarification on the R1bn made available for the catastrophe.

The National Treasury clarified that the money was available, but there was a challenge with the application process.

The committee said it was also pleased with clarification that the main challenge for the National Treasury was lack of co-ordination between various spheres of government when applying for the funding.

The National Treasury briefed the committee about grants it had allocated thus far.

It said it had approved R87.4m in provincial and municipal disaster response grants to six municipalities in KwaZulu-Natal, R325.8m in provincial emergency housing grants in the province and R16.6m in municipal emergency housing grants for the Eastern Cape's Alfred Nzo municipality to fund temporary shelters for 258 destitute households. So far, R8.3m had been transferred and the municipality would have to spend at least 80% of this before the second tranche could be disbursed.

The committee said it was also informed that approved reprioritisation of conditional grants for immediate response included R65m for the hiring of water tankers for KwaZulu-Natal's eThekwini, Ugu and iLembe district municipalities. A further R41.3m was approved for the reprioritisation of the municipal infrastructure grant in the province.

Other initiatives to provide immediate relief funding included R189m for an informal settlements upgrading partnership grant to KwaZulu-Natal, R105.7m in human settlements development conditional grant payments to the Eastern Cape and R733m in human settlements development conditional grant payments to KwaZulu-Natal.

The committee said it had asked all three spheres of government to provide metrics of how government was responding to the disaster to mitigate a silos approach to the work, which had contributed to funding confusion.

It planned to finalise its preliminary report to assist with challenges it saw after visiting the three affected provinces.

After the finalisation and tabling thereof, the committee would request progress reports from the provinces to ascertain their response to the disaster after the committee’s intervention. Thereafter, it would invite the auditor-general to present reports on the special audit it is conducting into the disaster. This information would form part of the committee’s final report, it said.

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