Very little of KZN flood relief funds spent but looters have taken their cut

The KZN human settlements department has spent only a fraction of the money allocated to it to deal with the temporary relocation of the province’s residents who were displaced by floods this year.

Of the R342m conditional grants and disaster relief grants set aside for temporary residential units, KZN had spent less than 10% of the funds.

This emerged during the briefing by the auditor-general of the ad hoc committee on flood disaster relief and recovery.

The AG apportioned the failure to deliver as per allocated budgets and demand to “lack of capacity and inadequate project management”.

Members fumed against this, saying there were too many unemployed graduates loitering the streets without jobs for government institutions to be crying about “lack of capacity”.

The AG also fingered government for “response that was too slow compared to planned milestones”.

As for the Eastern Cape, which was also affected by the floods, the situation was worsened by a messy “co-ordination between municipalities and provincial departments” which led to close to no work being done to recover and provide relief to affected families.

Even in KZN where some level of work has been done, there was a concern non-compliance with procurement legislative prescripts.

The AG concluded: “Government’s ability to respond to the disaster was not adequate — from affect assessment to delivery of relief.

“Compromised control environments, pre-existing system and process deficiencies, lack of capacity and inadequate intergovernmental co-ordination weaken delivery on even the best disaster response plans.”

The consequence of these failures, said Tsakani Maluleke, was that “residents and businesses in affected areas continue to experience hardship more than three months after flood with little relief”.

In the eThekwini Metro in particular, which was the most affected with unprecedented destruction of infrastructure and homes, the AG found that there were:

• Delays experienced in supply of water such as was not received for at least one day and not received for more than three days as confirmed by 83% and 57% of affected communities respectively;
• Poor co-ordination and integration with poor co-ordination between the city, KZN Cogta and national department of water & sanitation, leading to resources not being used effectively;
• Ineffective information flow leading to inadequate needs assessment to determine water required;
• Poor condition of tankers with leakages from tanker hoses and defects on three water tankers;
• Abuse of emergency as reason for not following adequate process with no progress after similar pricing challenges identified during Covid-19 audits; and
• Higher prices paid compared to other spheres of government such as national water and sanitation.

MPs expressed concern that despite the low expenditure, there were still businesses that could not miss out on seeing an opportunity to loot.

“Section 86 of the PFMA speaks about where financial misconduct happens. Criminal proceedings must be instituted against those who are responsible,” said MP China Dodovu.

“The country is in disaster mode. More than 400 people have died, families are displaced, bridges have collapsed, schools are destroyed but there are still people with nefarious evil intention to loot in respect of procurement.

“This is gross violation of the law and we need to go to that point where such decision and recommendations are made (for people to be criminally charged) and where follow-ups are made,” said Dodovu. 

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