Africa-Press – South-Africa. The National Treasury has approved eThekwini municipality’s R1.6bn grant rollover request.
The rollover is for the municipal disaster recovery grant, the project preparation support grant and the neighbourhood development partnership grant (NDPG) for the employment programme.The city applied for the rollover after the Treasury only dispatched the funds in March, three months before the end of the 2022/23 financial year, while the grant framework stipulates that the funds can be spent in 12 months.
The municipality said in its application that it was impossible to spend R1.5bn in that time frame as it required completing supply chain management processes of 700 projects.
During a full council meeting on Thursday, mayor Mxolisi Kaunda announced that Treasury had granted the rollover.
“The reasons that we put to the National Treasury were convincing. The money had already been committed, it is in our account but we needed authority. That authority arrived yesterday. We’re ready with all projects, SCM processes have been completed.
The approval is in respect of:
• R1.5bn for the municipal disaster recovery grant to fund human settlement projects, water and sanitation, roads provision and stormwater maintenance;
• R8.9m for the project preparation support grant; and
• R32.9m for the neighbourhood development partnership grant.
“This latest development, particularly in relation to the storm disaster grant, will help us speed up the repairs of our roads and stormwater infrastructure which was severely damaged during the floods. I am sure you will agree with me that road infrastructure is critical in the tourism sector because visitors cannot access our tourism sites if our road infrastructure is in a poor state.”
Kaunda said the NDPG will allow the city to extend the PEP programme to December.
The programme was suspended as a result of the nationwide budgetary constraints, which affected about 5,000 workers.
Kaunda also confirmed that the informal settlement upgrade partnership grant had been spent in full and that Treasury had committed to reconsider the public transport network grant as there was still a dispute with the department of transport.
For More News And Analysis About South-Africa Follow Africa-Press
