eThekwini scrambling for funds as Ramaphosa’s R1 billion promise fails

Despite having spent hundreds of millions on interventions, the eThekwini Municipality still requires a few billion rand from national Treasury to deal with the damage from the floods.

This, as the R1 billion promised by President Cyril Ramaphosa soon after the floods has not yet materialised.

eThekwini’s chief financial officer Sandile Mnguni told the parliamentary ad-hoc joint committee on flood and disaster recovery on Tuesday, during an engagement in Durban, that the City needed around R3 billion to fix the damage.

Our infrastructure network is quite wide, we are servicing close to 10 000 km of roads and around 12 000 km of water pipeline — that is the extent of the challenge we are dealing with, so we do need support from national.

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Tuesday was the first day of the committee’s three-day feedback session in KwaZulu-Natal.

The committee was set up shortly after the floods during April and May in KZN and over the next two days it will be hearing presentations from different sectors of government about their progress or lack thereof and challenges facing them in their recovery efforts.

Mnguni said the city has reprioritised around R2,1 billion from the current budget to deal with “critical infrastructure” relating to electricity and water.

Ramaphosa’s famous R1 billion for KZN floods

Regarding the now infamous R1 billion that Ramaphosa promised would be disbursed by treasury to KZN, Mnguni said neither eThekwini nor the KZN government have received the funds.

Mnguni said the municipality had submitted their applications for relief funding in May.

The latest feedback I got from treasury last week is that we will be getting R185 million by next week.

However Mnguni did stress that more money would be needed from treasury if the city is to go back to its pre-flood functionality.

Aside from repriotising the City’s budget, Mnguni said the municipality had also made insurance claims of around R1 billion.

The damages were extensive, that is why our insurance assessors are still busy with the assessment. Almost 400 sites were devastated by the storm and each site has various assets like furniture, building equipment, etc. The latest feedback I have received is that they have verified about 150 of those sites and by December we should know how much is payable to the City.

Dr Musa Gumede, eThekwini Municipality deputy city manager, confirmed that 417 people had died in eThekwini due to the floods, while 80 were still missing.

Gumede said large-scale search and rescue operations have been halted, however, if the City did get a request to retrieve a body, then a team would be dispatched.

Gumede said two people have died in the City’s community shelters, one in Truro Hall in Pietermaritzburg and another in the canelands.

The first person got sick and died in hospital while the other went out drinking and was stabbed outside while on his way back to the shelter.

Gumede said with donations running out from non-profit organisations, the City does have a couple of tenders out which will be dealing with supplying food to people in shelters.

The members of parliament said they were encouraged by the progress the city has made but said things could move faster.

Many members expressed shock that treasury had still not disbursed the relief funds to KZN.

Tim Brauteseth MPL, said while “rich” communities have managed to rebuild using their own funds, poor communities have been left desolate.

For the poor communities, it is like the floods happened yesterday.

The Witness has in the past reported on communities in Shallcross and Shongweni, which used their own funds to rebuild damaged bridges.

Today the committee will be conducting oversight visits in Ugu district and several parts of eThekwini.