Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Des van Rooyen has criticised the Western Cape provincial government for its slow spending on drought relief funding.
Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) Minister Des van Rooyen has criticised the Western Cape provincial government for its slow spending on drought relief funding. He further said that the province could not excuse its poor planning on its processes with its supply chain management.
Eyewitness News reported that in the last six months, the Western Cape government had only spent 24% of R74.8-million allocated to it by the treasury on disaster relief. The provincial government’s lacklustre spending, according to Van Rooyen, has since made it difficult for him to lobby the treasury for more funding for the emergency disaster fund.
“This expenditure trend undermines the purpose of the intervention and now it’s even compounding the matter because we’re currently lobbying for more resources,” said Van Rooyen.
On Tuesday Van Rooyen told the portfolio committee in Parliament that an inter-ministerial task team would decide later that afternoon on whether or not to declare the drought in the Western, Eastern and Northern Cape a national disaster.
This is a developing story as the meeting is currently underway.