Only half the funds allocated for drought relief paid to drought-stricken provinces
28 October 2016
The National Disaster Management Centre, which falls within the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, has spent just 44% of the funds allocated for disaster relief.
The explanation provided by CoGTA in their 2015/16 annual report as to why just under R260 million of the almost R600 million made available was spent is that no request made by the provincial departments for the disaster relief grants had been received.
This is unacceptable as eight out of our nine provinces have been declared disaster areas in the last year, due to the drought and should have available funds allocated to them.
This is yet another reason why the drought must be declared a national disaster – to ensure that farmers in need of relief do not have to depend on red-tape and fragmented provincial and local governments to submit requests on their behalf.