DA KZN:  ANC in a bind over Disaster Management Amendment Bill

It is clear that the ANC in KZN is in a bind, being forced to tow the line and approve this Bill in spite of the serious financial burden that it stands to place on municipalities and the province.

KZN’s COGTA portfolio committee held two public meetings around the Bill – one in Ulundi and another in this Chamber.  The one in Ulundi was poorly attended – not only by the public but also by ANC members of this House with only Hon Kaunda attending.

Nevertheless, today we must look at what this Bill seeks to do.

Firstly it seeks to transfer a function from national to municipalities.

Yet, the presenter of the Bill from national has already acknowledged that there are gaps in the Bill, particularly in respect of funding provision with municipalities expected to fund an unfunded mandate with their own revenue, their equitable share and conditional grants – all of which are meant for service delivery.

We must also remember that much of the damages caused by previous disasters in our province have not yet been fully restored and many communities are still waiting for assistance and want to rebuild their lives.

The DA should not need to remind this House about the current state of KZN’s municipal revenue, with the huge debts carried as a result of service charge arrears.

It is these struggling municipalities that the DA is concerned about. We do not believe that they will be able to fund this function of what is clearly an unfunded mandate. 

This Bill and its Amendments will place a massive financial burden on all municipalities which cannot be sustained – especially those that fall into Category 3.

Many municipalities rely on Grants from the National Fiscus and province in order to carry out their mandates.

This Bill and its Amendments also do not spell out clearly the location of the Disaster Management Unit.  Is it at a District or a Local Municipality?

Our province is prone to natural disasters with damages costing millions of Rands.

If this persists then municipalities will be forced to use funds meant for service delivery including water, electricity, sanitation and housing in order to attend to this.

This is set to have a devastating effect on communities.

The mandate given to our delegates has not been taken seriously as the amendments to this Bill seek to transfer an unfunded mandate to municipalities.

The DA appeals to the Task Team set up by National Treasury to look carefully at the funding issue and the impact that this will have on poorer municipalities in our province.

The DA supports this Bill with reservations.

Issued by George Mari, DA KZN Spokesperson on COGTA, 6 October 2015