Treasury approves R670m for KZN flood relief
Treasury has to date approved some R670 million from the R1 billion in disaster relief funds made available following April's deadly floods in KwaZulu-Natal.
The deadly floods, which battered KZN and Eastern Cape, caused the death of 448 people and displaced over 40,000 people.
Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana, together with Treasury officials, addressed Parliament's Ad Hoc Joint Committee on Flood Disaster Relief and Recovery on Friday.
Gondongwana admitted that government needs to do better in the future.
"Clearly we need to draw lessons out of this and say how do we develop a system of preparedness for disasters so that moving forward we should have that in place, moving forward they are going to be a feature of our society."
Chief Director for Infrastructure in Treasury Ulrike Britton said by July this year R5 billion was approved for reprioritisation.
"All the approvals for reprioritisation and the allocation for the emergency response grant have totaled R5.3 billion as of the end of July. Out of that money, R674 million has been approved in relation to the four emergency relief grants. This R674 million out of the R1 billion that we have in the budget that has already been approved for allocation."
Some of the funds were taken from grants for Human Settlements, Water, and Sanitation, Cooperative Governance, Small Business Development, and Transport departments in KwaZulu-Natal.
This while Eastern Cape funds were taken from Human Settlements, Water, and Sanitation, and Cooperative Governance departments.
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