Cape Town - Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana has confirmed the R1 billion allocated to KwaZulu-Natal for relief efforts during floods will not be new money.
Godongwana said this money was allocated during the budget in February and it was in the form of various grants in departments.
He said this was not new money as some had been suggesting, but funds that were already in the budget.
Political parties have, for the last few weeks, since President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the state of disaster in KZN, demanded to see the R1bn.
This was after speculation mounted that the money has not been distributed to the province for relief efforts.
But Godongwana, who was replying to a written question from the DA, said this was not new money.
“The R1 billion mentioned by the President refers to funds that are provided for in the 2022 Division of Revenue Bill (and are not new monies), namely disaster relief funds (for immediate response) through the Provincial Disaster Response Grant and the Municipal Disaster Response Grant. These grants are allocated R144 million and R371 million respectively in 2022/23.
“A further R501 million is available for this financial year, in the form of provincial and municipal Emergency Housing Grants. These funds, amounting to just over R1 billion, are available shortly after Treasury receives an application from the National Disaster Management Centre (NDMC) and/ or the national Department of Human Settlements (DHS), which are responsible for administering these grants.
“NDMC and DHS submit their applications to National Treasury, once they have verified the submissions received from the province(s) and municipality(ies) concerned. To date, National Treasury has not received any applications from the NDMC or DHS,” said Godongwana.
A Parliamentary committee is heading to KZN on Friday to monitor the implementation of relief efforts, including the use of funds.
The Auditor-General of South Africa has also been roped in to do real-time audits, to prevent any fraud and corruption, like that which happened during the Covid-19 PPE tenders.
siyabonga.mkhwanazi@inl.co.za
Political Bureau