Municipalities have complained about the centralisation of disaster funds in the national government, saying this impedes their ability to respond to disasters.
Since April this year, the funds have been centralised in the national Department of Human Settlements.
The City of Cape Town has publicly raised concerns about this while the issue was also mentioned by the mayor of eThekwini Municipality in a recent executive committee meeting.
In June, storms battered Durban and caused extensive damage, with the cost estimated at R543 million. The Mercury reported late last month that the municipality was waiting for funding to rebuild damaged infrastructure.
Included in this figure, is R80m for relocating about 360 families affected by floods and who live close to streams.
eThekwini mayor Mxolisi Kaunda told a meeting in the same month that the metro’s ability to respond to natural disasters had been complicated by funding being centralised. He said they were engaging with the national department over the issue.
The metro declined to elaborate on the impact of this change in the funding strategy.
EThekwini spokesperson Gugu Sisilana said: “The changes affect all municipalities and all provincial government Human Settlements departments across the country in all nine provinces. The change is not unique to eThekwini Municipality only.
“If there are any impacts, these will be communicated directly with the relevant sphere of government, not through a third party,” she said.
Councillor Carl Pophaim, Mayco member for human settlements at the City of Cape Town, said because of the change some disaster-hit areas were still waiting for assistance.
“The national government change of centralising funding in the ministry came into effect on March 31 this year,” he said, adding that they had tried to engage the Department of Human Settlements over the issue.
“He said there was still some capacity to respond within the City, including fire or flood response teams reconnecting services, verification and counting of affected people, and enabling soft relief.
“However, the provision of emergency building kits that the City could help provide within 24 to 48 hours, depending on circumstances, were no longer possible to provide,” he said.
The funding should be decentralised to competent well-run municipalities, he said, “so that they can do what is needed to provide relief, and in the City’s case to provide shelter material, in the shortest possible time, without delay to help our residents.”
The national department was approached for comment, however, it sent The Mercury the statement issued when Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi had announced the rationale for the change.
In that statement, the minister said the change was necessary to respond efficiently to disasters that are frequent, severe and require a human settlement disaster response that was swift and appropriate for alleviating the plight of the affected families.
She said from April 1 this year the department would take over implementing the emergency housing programme. As a result, the provincial emergency housing grant and the municipal emergency housing grant would cease to exist.
“Looking at our response to disasters, we realised that Human Settlements’ response is underwhelming and slow. As a result, we have seen disaster victims find themselves without homes two to three years after the disaster has struck,” she said.
“We also realised that the method of allocation of funds among the provinces was suboptimal as some provinces were more prone to disasters than others.
“Working with National Treasury, we determined that our response to disasters would be more effective when managed at a national level.
“This also means that the emergency funds will be available for deployment to affected areas at the time of need,” she said.
The Mercury