Durban – Leaders of Cosatu and the SACP have slammed the slow spending of relief funds earmarked to deal with infrastructure damage after last year’s floods in KwaZulu-Natal.
In a press briefing at the ANC’s provincial headquarters in Durban on Tuesday, provincial secretaries of the organisations, which with the ANC form as the tripartite alliance, said the slow spending should not be happening when there is an urgent need to deal with issues that arose as a result of the April and May 2022 storms.
The condemnation comes as members of the Ad-Hoc Joint Committee on Flood Disaster Relief and Recovery from Parliament are in KZN on a fact finding mission following a damning report by Auditor-General (AG) Tskakani Maluleke two weeks ago.
In her presentation she found that the KZN government had spent just 4% of the R5.8 billion that had been allocated to it. The floods in April last year led to loss of lives and caused massive damage to infrastructure in parts of KZN, especially in Durban.
On Tuesday, Cosatu KZN secretary Edwin Mkhize said it was concerning that resolutions to serve the public were undermined by party members deployed in government, adding that failure to spend on disaster relief was a disappointing moment.
SACP KZN secretary Themba Mthembu said the revelations by the AG were shocking and pointed to a need to act against individuals that were not performing as expected.
“We were so embarrassed to hear about it and spoke about it at the meeting of the alliance leaders,” said Mthembu.
Bheki Mtolo, who is the ANC provincial secretary, said they viewed the non-performance of its deployees, including those that were not spending public money properly in a serious light.
“The alliance takes seriously the task of holding accountable all leaders deployed by the ANC into different structures within the state,” said Mtolo.
The Ad-Hoc Joint Committee on Flood Disaster Relief and Recovery committee stated that the objective of the oversight visit is to allow the members an opportunity to have a clear understanding of the extent to which the government has been able to provide assistance to the KZN province with regard flood disaster relief and recovery from the 2022 floods and establish the amount of damage caused by the recent 2023 floods.